


Blackbird

by s0ymilk



Series: Blackbird [1]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Eventual Romance, F/M, Ghoul Sex, Ghouls, Slow Burn, Smut, Violence, What-If
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:45:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 60,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6966961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0ymilk/pseuds/s0ymilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Panicked, alone, and carrying nothing but a pistol, newly evicted Vault 101 resident Gal finds herself stranded in the Capital Wasteland. </p><p>She makes it less than a day before the slavers find her. </p><p>(The Pitt DLC!AU, Charon/F!Lone Wanderer)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Above the Deep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4635852) by [s0ymilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0ymilk/pseuds/s0ymilk). 



> Remember when I said I would eventually post something not AtD related? I lied. Though this is a standalone, so you don't need to read 'Above the Deep' to follow along. 
> 
> This is half 'what if?' story, half DLC AU. I'm not really sure how to categorize it. You'll figure it out. Warnings at the end of each chapter.

_"“It's a slaver camp.” she whispers, feeling cold. Gal thinks back to the day she left the Vault, how she had wandered aimlessly and stumbled upon Megaton, and shivers at how easily she could have ended up down there, naked and afraid."_

\--

When she exits the Vault, it’s completely dark out. In some ways, it’s a let-down. She can’t even see the bright new world she’s stumbled on to. 

She steps on something right outside the door that cracks under her heel. She picks it up; when she recognizes the object in her hand, she drops the skull like a poisonous snake and shrieks. The sound echoes through the wilderness. 

Outside the cave, all is dark. She can’t see anything in this total blackness. The rustle of leaves and crunching of twigs around her makes her nervous. She keeps getting spooked, moving too fast, and tripping over something in her path. Finally, hands scraped up and cheek bleeding, she stays down.

She sits in the same spot for an hour. The pistol Amata had given her lays across her knees, but she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to use it. When she’d shot the security guard in the head in panic, she’d vomited all over the floor right afterwards. His face had been so destroyed she couldn’t even tell who he was. 

It had looked like raw meat. Ripped up chunks of raw meat, like you might cook in a skillet or put in a stew. 

If she had anything left to throw up now, she probably would be. 

She has no idea what to expect out here, and so of course her mind keeps coming up with worse-case scenarios. Huge monsters with slavering maws, groups of cannibalistic men, poisonous plants. It’s enough to make her shake and tear up. 

Finally she gets up. She’s hungry, thirsty, and tired, and none of those things will change by sitting on the ground, waiting. 

When she sees a sign up in the distance, she ponders for a long few minutes before coming to a decision. 

Megaton. Could be a settlement, could be a town. Or it could be something else. She has no way of knowing. 

The sign points right. She goes left. Better to find a house to bunker down in somewhere, where she can forage for some food and wait out the night. 

\--

She never makes it to a house. Exhausted and cold, she doesn’t notice the group of raiders until they’re basically on top of her. One goes down thanks to her shitty little pistol, but then it’s wrestled out of her hand and she’s left defenseless. The raider laughs right before he clubs her on the head.

When she wakes, she’s in chains. Everything of value that she owns has been taken from her. She struggles, and fights, but all it gets her is a black eye and a whole collection of bruises all over her body. 

Nobody tells her where they’re going. Not even the other men and women bound up in chains know. But there’s whispers of a place to the north where slaves are taken and sold, where they work until they’re dead, or until sickness gets to them and turns them into something monstrous. 

What’s it called, she asks tentatively of the people around her. A woman looks back at her with haunted eyes. 

The Pitt, she says. It’s called the Pitt. 

\--

“ _ Shit.  _ Fucking  _ bitch. _ ” the slaver says with venom. She brings her hand up and backhands Gal as hard as she can across the cheek. It nearly knocks her to the floor, but the slaver catches her by one manacled wrist and yanks her back up. Gal wants to bite her again, but her head is ringing so badly that she can’t even see straight. 

“I fucking hate this job. Why can’t I go work with the miners? These fighters are like rabid fucking animals.” the slaver mutters to herself as she continues jerking Gal along down the hallway. Gal tries to pull away, but the slaver just grabs her by the hair instead. The pain makes her screech. 

“You might as well get used to it, you little twat. At least you’ll get a chance to die on your feet, instead of on your back.” she says harshly. Gal doesn’t reply; the hand in her hand is pulling cruelly and her scalp and she can feel chunks of her locks being ripped out. 

They go through a door at the end of the hallway and come into a wide room with a double set of bars on the far end. There’s about five feet of space between the two sets of bars, and another room beyond. A guard sits in the corner of the room with a rifle over his lap. He gives her captor a nod and looks Gal over. 

“Seriously? She’s going to be a fighter?” he says dubiously, taking in her shortness and slight frame. “They’ll rip her apart.” 

Her captor snorts. “Apparently that’s what her last owner thought too, until she bit his dick off. She’s too small to mine, and too vicious for the whorehouse, so I guess they figure they might as well get some entertainment out of her.” 

The guard shrugs, but stands. He doesn’t seem to be that interested. Across the room, behind the set of double bars, a couple of women are eyeing her surreptitiously. 

The guard unlocks a door in the first set of bars, locks it against behind them, and proceeds to open the second door once Gal’s captor has the manacle off her wrists. When the door swings open, the slaver puts a boot on her back and kicks her into the room. She hits the dirt with an ‘oomph’ and immediately scrabbles to her feet in case further abuse follows. But the guard just relocks the gate and heads back with the slaver to his workpost. 

“Good riddance.” the slaver calls over her shoulder. “I hope you die in your first fight.” 

Gal scowls at her, but the woman doesn’t even look back. Rubbing at her bruised cheek, she turns to scope out her situation. The room she’s in contains two battered tables, both of which are bolted to the wall. There’s a hallway on either end. The women standing in this room, all clothed as she is in short skirts and midriff-baring leather halters, are eyeing her with curiousity, but also with suspicion. None approach to help her. 

She thinks about saying something, or approaching a woman to ask, but they don’t look very friendly. Nobody in this damn wasteland is friendly, she’s found. Not like home, where it was common courtesy to say hello when you passed someone in the hallway. Here, they’re more likely to shoot you than they are to greet you. 

She ignores them and goes to explore. 

The slave quarters are surprisingly big for the number of women in them. There’s four rooms in all: two sleeping areas, the middle area in eyesight of the guard, and another big gathering space with a large, heavily barred window in one side. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the women’s schedules; some are asleep on the dirty straw pads in the sleeping areas, others are seated in small groups, talking or playing games. Some even do exercises in the corners. 

Gal approaches a woman at random and clears her throat, hoping to learn a little bit more about where she is. The woman, scarred and leathery, looks her over and snorts, as if displeased by what she sees. 

“What do you want, new-comer?” she asks in an unfriendly tone. 

“Just some information.” Gal says, in as friendly a manner as she can affect. The woman is unmoved. 

“Well, I see about a dozen other people in here who can provide it to you. Go bark up their tree.” the woman says coldly, and turns away. Gal gapes at her blatant rudeness. She nearly grabs the woman by the shoulder, but a huge, ugly scar on the woman’s back stops her. These women don’t look like they’d take kindly to rudeness. She’s already as beaten up as she wants to be, and it’s not as if it’s urgent. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, whether she knows about it or not. 

She doesn’t bother approaching anyone else, as they all give her the same disinterested look. Instead, she stalks over to the barred window and crawls up on the wide sill to get a look out. Someone else is occupying the other side, but Gal doesn’t pay her any mind. 

The window looks out upon a  dirt arena. The other sides of it hold rows of seats, some of which are occupied. If she cranes her head enough to peek out to the left, she can see another barred window next to theirs. Another set of slave quarters, maybe? 

She’s trying to reach how far she can reach out the bars when a gravelly voice interrupts her. 

“Don’t bother. It’s a fifty foot drop down with no handholds. Trust me, plenty of others have tried.” the woman says sitting on the other side of the sill says, sounding amused. She hadn’t so much as looked at her when she’d clambered up onto the window sill, but now she turns to face her. 

Gal flinches when her eyes land on the woman’s face. Her flesh is torn or ripped off in big chunks, and where her nose should be, there’s only a dark hole. The rest of her body is the same - not even an inch of skin exists that isn’t marred in some way. Her eyes are light and milky, like a blind person’s. They focus on Gal just fine, so Gal doubts that she has any trouble seeing. 

“What? Never seen a ghoul before?” The woman asks with a hint of irritation when Gal doesn’t respond. Gal blinks and shakes her head hurriedly, before this one decides she isn’t worth talking to as well. 

“No, I haven’t. Sorry for staring. I’m - new to the Wasteland.” she explains, dropping her gaze from the woman’s ripped skin. The irritated look fades from the woman’s face with the apology. 

“Well, you’re certainly polite.” she grumbles, settling back against the wall. “Where you from then, tourist?” 

Gal debates lying, but what would be the use? If they don’t already know that she’s no fighter, they’ll figure it out soon enough. 

“A Vault.” she replies. “I was only out a day before they caught me.” 

The woman looks surprised by this information. Gal guesses there aren’t many former Vault-dwellers in the Wasteland. She assumes something about the charming wildlife or the friendly people scare the rational ones back underground. God, she wishes she’d been that smart. She can’t think of a place worse than here. Maybe the whorehouse. She’d missed that one by a narrow (and violent) margin. 

“That’s some shitty luck. You’ve missed out on all the excitement our fine area has to offer then.” the woman says, with a bark of laughter. “I’m Willow. Nice to meet you, smoothskin.” 

“I’m Gal.” she replies with a smile. “So… can you tell me about this place?” 

“You mean the Pitt?” Willow asks. At Gal’s nod, she continues. “What’s to say? It’s a mining town. Something like three quarters of the Capital Wasteland’s slaves end up here. The lucky ones end up where you and I are - fighters. We get to die on our feet with a weapon in our hands. The rest either work in the mills until they drop or end up in the whorehouses.” 

“Who do we fight?” Gal asks hesitantly. Willow glances over at the other women milling around the room pointedly. 

“We fight  _ each other?! _ ” Gal hisses lowly, looking over at the other women. Every single one of them looks like they can pick her up and break her like a twig. Even Willow, who takes after her name, looks strong enough to throw her across the room. Gal has spent the last 19 years playing on computers and doing absolutely nothing that resembles physical activity. Where would she even have bothered trying in that tiny vault? She really  _ is  _ going to die in her first fight. 

“Yup. All for the entertainment of Overlord Supreme Ashur. He runs this shithole. That arena down there? A few times a week, some of us get selected to fight for him. Sometimes it’s one-on-one, other times it’s a battle royale. Occasionally, when the scouts get their hands on one, they’ll bring a yao guai or a deathclaw back for us to fight, but that doesn’t happen too often.” 

Gal looks back out upon the arena in horror. That’s her grave, right there. She’s never going to find her father, because someone is going to beat her death for entertainment instead. This place is awful. She wishes there was a hole to crawl into somewhere in these quarters where she can just have a complete mental breakdown. Too bad. 

There’s more people in the seats now than there were when she’d first looked out. Directly across from them is an individual seat, raised higher than the rest. A man in heavy armour walks out and sits in it. Gal can’t make his features out at this distance. 

“Looks like a fight’s about to start.” Willow says casually, turning her attention to the arena as well. 

Gal can see that there are two gates set into the ground level on either side of the arena. Barrels are suspended above it by rope nets that are rigged to pulleys. Ashur calls something to the crowd that gets them up on their feet and cheering. 

“The competitors will be behind those two gates. When the gates come up, the barrels will drop into the arena - they’re full of radiation. Keeps the slaves fighting each other, because if they don’t win in a certain time limit, they’ll drop dead of radiation poisoning. It must be the males fighting, because I didn’t see any of ours get pulled today.” 

Just as Willow had described, after a few moments, the nets holding the barrels fall open, and the gates unlock with rusty screeches. From one side comes a quick, dark-haired fighter; from the other, a huge man with mottled skin just like Willow’s, settled in a crouch. Gal sees the glint of knives in each of their hands. 

“Oh. This’ll be a short fight.” Willow says, apparently losing some interest when she sees the fighters. At Gal’s questioning look, she explains. 

“The one on the left is Ashur’s favourite fighter. His name is Charon. He’s never lost a fight and I don’t know that he ever will. Certainly not to that little radroach.” Willows says, referencing the other dark-haired fighter. “Pray you don’t ever have to fight him.” 

The two make their way to the center of the arena to cheering. A couple of women have come over to watch the fight as well, but Gal ignores them and focuses on the action. The dark-haired one darts in, slashing with a knife; he seems fast, but not fast enough. He chases the other man around the arena for a few minutes, trying to gain the upper edge. Finally the other man, Charon, catches his wrist and the knife falls out of the dark-haired man’s hand. There’s a loud crack, and a cry of pain; the dark-haired man stumbles backwards, holding his broken arm. Charon picks up the other knife, tucks it away, and waits. 

Ashur claps loudly from the stands and leans over to say something to the man standing next to him. A siren sounds; both Charon and the dark-haired man with the broken arm back up into the open gates and disappear. The fight seems to be over, as the men and women in the arena seats get up and start to leave. 

“Normally it’s a fight to the death, but Charon leaves ‘em alive if it’s not a good enough fight. Then they get repurposed to the mines instead. Not sure what they’ll do with that one since his arm is broken, though.” Willow muses as a group of people in radiation suits come out to pick up the barrels. Gal watches them woodenly and tries to keep her breathing under control. She is so  _ screwed.  _

“Willow.” she says softly, trying not to let her voice hitch, “I - I’ve never fought before. I don’t know how. I’m going to get killed in my first fight.” 

The ghoulette looks over in surprise. She takes in Gal’s quivering lower lip and forcedly calm breathing with no reaction. Then, quick as a snake, she lunges forward. 

Gal, surprised, brings an arm up to protect her face and lashes out with a foot. The ghoulette knocks her kick aside, sending her careening off the window ledge. Before Gal can hit the floor, Willow hooks an arm around her neck and tries to pull her in a headlock. Gal nearly ducks under it, but isn’t quite fast enough; she goes to bite, but Willow’s elbow is already tucked under her chin and squeezing steadily on her windpipe. Scrabbling at Willow’s arm proves useless; instead, Gal sums up her quickly-deteriorating energy and elbows her in the stomach. Willow lets go with a wheezing laugh. Gal stumbles a few steps away and turns to keep her adversary in view, waiting for the next strike. 

It doesn’t come. Willow looks at her appraisingly and smiles a little, holding her stomach where Gal had elbowed her. 

“Alright, tourist, that’s enough. Even if you don’t have any training, your reflexes are good and your instincts are spot on. The rest we can work with.” 

Gal blinks and lets her arms fall to the side. “Are you… saying you’ll help me?” she asks hesitantly. Willow rolls her eyes and jumps off the ledge. 

“Well, I’m not about to teach you how to dance. Get over her, no time like the present.” 

That afternoon, Willow teaches her where to put her feet and how to hold her body so she can’t be knocked over by a shove or a punch. She teaches her how to fall so she doesn’t get hurt, and how to get back on her feet quickly. They work on moving around, side to side to avoid punches and forward and back to engage or create distance. Willow shows her how pivoting her hips puts more force behind her punch and a few tricks to get an opponent to drop a knife, if she’s lucky enough to catch their arm. 

It’s exhausting work, probably more exercise than Gal’s ever had in her life. But by the end, when Willow spars with her slowly, moving back and forth and throwing easy punches, Gal can figure out how to respond to protect herself, and even get in a few shots of her own. If she gets sent to a fight tomorrow, it probably won’t be enough. But it’s something. 

Later that night, they get served dinner - brown goop in bowls that smells like dog shit. Willow forces her to eat every bite, and even gives her half of hers as well. 

“I’m not going down in a fight anytime soon, smoothskin.” she says as she dumps the goop into Gal’s bowl. “You on the other hand, a strong breeze could blow you away.” 

Gal grimaces and eats all of it. 

When night comes, Willow gets a whole corner of a room to herself. She doesn’t complain when Gal drags a straw mat over next to her, but the other women give Gal dirty looks when they think the ghoulette isn’t watching. She doesn’t care. It’s not like they’d helped her, and it’s not her fault they’re scared of Willow. 

Gal wants to ask Willow more, but she falls asleep the minute her head hits the pillow. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPECIAL WARNING: There is the beginning of a sexual assault scene in this. Mostly grabbing and some clothes get undone. Nothing near as involved as the one in AtD, so I'm not going to mark it, but just be aware if that could be triggering for you.

They’re at it again the next day. Willow is showing her how to fight an opponent from the ground when a clatter comes from the middle room where the guard sits duty.

“Willow!” a surly voice calls. “Get the fuck up here!”

Gal lets go of Willow’s arm so she can stand up, and follows her into the guard-room. The guard on duty and another slaver are in the the space between the two sets of bars, waiting impatiently.

“Charon asked for you.” the guard tells her. Willow grimaces.  

“We just did this last week.” she says irritably. The slaver bangs on the bars again with the hilt of his combat knife, clearly impatient.

Ignoring him, Willow turns back to Gal and tells her in a low voice, “If any of the others try to start anything with you, fight. Even if you lose, they’ll probably leave you alone once they see you won’t back down.”

Gal nods, glancing over at the others in the room. It’s enough for Willow, who turns and walks to the door set in the bars to be let through. She disappears with the slaver and the guard takes his position in the corner of the room again.

Gal turns to go back to her spot at the window, imagining that Willow will be gone for a while, but the minute she disappears out of eyeshot of the guard, someone grabs her by the arm and jerks her backwards. It’s one of the women who’s been giving her the dirtiest looks. When Gal jerks her arm from her grasp, the woman smiles in a nasty way.

“Been cozying up to the zombie, have you? Think it’s going to help you?” she mutters. It’s clear she’s trying not to get heard by any of the slavers. The look in her eyes is disturbing.

“You have a problem with my choice of friends?” Gal says coolly. She may not be much of a fighter yet, but she can sling shit with the best of them, and she plans to put that to use. “I value good looks in a friend, and Willow seems to be the best option in here.”

The woman snarls and goes for her collar. Gal, surprisingly, is able to knock her hand away and get a knee to the stomach in before the woman punches her across the face. Gal steps past her, shoves her shoulder back, and hooks a foot around her ankle, just like her teacher had showed her. The woman goes down, flat on her back, but she gets ahold of Gal’s wrist and takes her down with her.

Gal definitely comes out the worse in this fight. She gets a black eye and a lot more bruises by the time the guard gets them split apart. He doesn’t come in the cell, just threatens to shoot them if they don’t cut it out, and assures them that that goes for any of the other parts of the slave quarters as well. But when Gal retreats to the window, nobody else bothers her. Willow returns a few hours later and takes in her swelling eye with no small amount of amusement.

“So? They bother you after you got that?” she asks. Gal shakes her head and smiles.

“You were right. Guess you’re a good teacher.”

Will barks out a laugh and settles back against the window.

“Where were you?” she asks curiously. Clearly, she hadn’t left for a fight, because she’s come back no worse for the wear. ‘Charon wants you’, the slaver had said… what did that mean?

Willow’s mouth twists. Gal sort of expects her not to answer, but then Willow gives a ‘why not’ shrug and answers.

“Since Charon is Ashur’s favourite fighter, he gets certain privileges. Like alone time with female slaves.” she says shortly. She doesn’t have to clarify.

Gal’s mouth nearly drops open.

“ _What?_ But, that’s -”

“It’s what?” Willow cuts her off. “Did you forget what we are? We’re slaves. We don’t get a choice.”

Her tone is curt, and brooks no discussion. Gal shuts her mouth and doesn’t say anything else. She has no right to, and if Willow had just come back from - _that_ \- unwillingly, then clearly she wouldn’t be in a good mood. In fact, she’s handling it far better than Gal knows she ever would.

She thinks of the large man she’d seen in the ring, at least six feet and all muscle, and shudders. At least Willow doesn’t appear to have any bruises. Maybe he’s not allowed to hurt them, since they’re needed for the fights.

“Hey,” Willow says, dragging her out of her thoughts. When Gal looks up, her face is less tense. She even looks a little repentant, for some reason. “Don’t worry about it so much, tourist. You know, sometimes… sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.”

That’s a cryptic statement if Gal’s ever heard one, but she drops the subject.

\--

Willow practices with her every day, and Gal gets more confident in her fighting skills. Twice in the next week, Willow gets called for fights - she takes down a woman with a knife in the first, and breaks a man’s neck in the second. Gal’s beginning to see why none of the slaves are friendly with each other. The woman you talk to today could be across from you in the ring tomorrow. Better not to get close. But Willow never objects to Gal’s presence. Gal picks up on when she wants to chat, and when she wants to be silent, and doesn’t push.

One the tenth day of Gal being in the Pitt, she gets called to fight. She’s in the middle of trying an armbar on Willow, but the moment she hears her name, her blood turns to ice. Willow has to tap her on the shoulder to get her to let go. Then she has to shove her in the direction of the guard room to get Gal to start walking.

Ahead of her, another woman is already being led out - black-haired, stocky, she’s maybe a few inches taller but at least ten pounds heavier. Gal blanches. She can feel her heart rate picking up, and her hands getting jittery.

She’s going to die today.

“Almza.” Willow whispers in her ear. “She’s not a strong fighter at all. Chin up, smoothskin, you’ll be fine.”

The words don’t reassure her at all.

“I’m going to _die,_ is what’s going to happen, Willow.” she hisses back as they approach the cell, and the slaver waiting on the other side. Willow rolls her eyes and pushes her forward another step.

“No, you’re not. You going to go out there and forget all the training we’ve been doing? Didn’t think so. Just don’t hesitate on the kill. Do whatever you have to, and _don’t_ try to grow a conscience in the middle of it. Ashur doesn’t like that.”

Gal swallows and tries to stop, but Willow keeps pushing her forward until they’re up to the gate. She gives Gal’s arm a goodbye squeeze just before the slaver reaches through and drags her out of the slave area.

She doesn’t look at the man guiding her by the elbow as they make their way down to the arena. She doesn’t even take in what’s around her, too busy trying not to hyperventilate or start tearing up. Neither will help her win this fight. She needs to stay calm, focus, and get through this. Just this fight, that’s all she has to think about.

“Alright, it’s bare fists, no weapons. Try not to die, I’ve got some money on you.” the slaver says as they come up to the arena. Gal nearly glares at him, but stops herself. They _bet_ on the slaves? Of course they do. She’s not sure why she’s surprised.

There’s a set of bars a few feet away from the familiar metal gate, similar to the entrance to the slave area. Gal can see the arena on the other side, but it’s too far to the other gate to spot her opponent. The guard shoves her into the waiting area, closes the door behind her, and leaves her to her fate.

Alright, what had Willow told her? She’s fast, so evasion is better than trying to overpower. If possible, try to break a limb; that’ll slow your opponent down real quick. The best way to kill an opponent bare-handed is breaking their neck. She can do this. She can do this.

Shit shit _shit._ She’s going to die.

Up above, she can hear people talking and stomping around in the seats. It doesn’t sound as busy as usual. The amount of filled seats corresponds to how good the fighter is, usually. Charon and Willow usually get a full house. She probably won’t get many at all.

That’s not what she needs to focus on, though. Focus on the grate. Focus on waiting for it to open, and then getting sight of her opponent as quick as possible.

Before she’s even close to ready, the grate screeches open.

Gal darts into the arena and nearly gets hit by a dropping barrel. She has to leap to the side to avoid it. The radiation is already sapping her strength; it makes her limbs heavy and the air feels thinner somehow, like she can’t breathe quite right.

Her opponent runs in at exactly the same time. Gal’s seen her around in the slave pens (how could she not, there’s only four rooms), but doesn’t know much about her. They circle, each sizing the other up.

Don’t rush, Willow had said. Fights go quick, but trying to rush in too soon is a death sentence. Gal finds that her nerves have all but disappeared; she’s filled with adrenaline, and hyper-focused on the black-haired woman opposite her.

Her opponent isn’t nearly as calm. She lunges at Gal, but Gal sidesteps and she misses by a mile. Turning around, her opponent goes for a second lunge. Gal steps only half as far this time; when the woman is just to the side of her, Gal turns and shoves her to the ground. The woman tries to get back up, but Gal kicks her in the stomach once, twice.

On the second kick, the woman manages to catch her foot and knocks her off balance. Before Gal can recover, the woman is on top of her. She goes for Gal’s throat; Gal throws her hands up instinctively and bats them away. As soon as she’s able, she thrusts her hips upwards to make the woman pitch forward. When she tries to catch herself on her hands, Gal drives a palm into her unprotected chin and then kicks her off.

She can feel her movements getting slower the longer the radiation pumps into her body. It’s affecting her opponent too, even more than it is Gal; the woman goes flying into a barrel and goes down. She struggles to get back up.

_The best way to kill an opponent is breaking their neck._ Willow whispers as she advances on her adversary. The other woman is trying to stand up dizzily, but she can’t seem to manage it.

Gal has to do it. She has to. Or she’ll die.

She reaches out, grabs the woman by the top of her head and her chin, and twists. The crack echoes across the arena. The meager crowd jumps to their feet and hoots as Gal lets the body drop and staggers backwards.

When the siren sounds, the rusty grate that she’s entered from lifts and she’s able to wobble back weakly, away from the energy-sapping radiation barrels. She stumbles right past the guard and falls to her knees. He wrinkles his nose as she vomits all over the metal floor, but waits until she’s done to yank her to her feet.

“I’ll overlook it this time, because you won me a hundred caps, but don’t yack in here again. That’s fucking gross. Here, lay down so I can set up this rad-away.”

There’s a table in the room that looks exactly like the one her father had used for surgery in the Vault. When she lays down, he tightens the restraints around her legs and arms and hooks up a bag of rad-away to her arm. At first, the fluid makes her nauseated. She has to close her eyes to keep the room from spinning around her. But after a bit, the feeling goes away.

“All done, let’s go. Fun’s over for today.” the guard says when the bag is drained. Gal stands, feeling, at least physically, much better, and lets him lead her back to the slave quarters without much protest. She keeps feeling the vibration in her fingers that she’d felt when she’d twisted the woman’s head. The image will be seared into her brain forever.

When she’s dropped off back at the pen, Willow is waiting for her. She doesn’t say anything, just leads Gal over to the window and lets her sit down in silence. Gal sits with her back to the bars, not wanting to see whether they’ve cleaned up the body yet or not.

Neither of them say anything the rest of the day. When they get up the next morning, Gal resumes training with Willow like it never happened.

\--

A few days later, Gal gets called again. They’d just finished watching Charon fight in the arena a half-hour ago, and she’s never seen two fights in one day, so she’s not sure whether to be grateful that she probably won’t have to kill anyone, or nervous. What else could they want her for? Nothing good, surely.

When she and Willow walk up to the gate, the slaver on the other side gives Willow a mocking smile.

“Looks like you’ve been dumped, shuffler. Hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings too much.” he says with a sneer. Willow stares him down coldly.

“Boo-hoo.” she says sarcastically, and walks away. Gal feels very alone without her presence, suddenly.

“What’s going on?” she says as the guard unlocks the door. “Is it another fight?”

The slaver turns his wicked grin on her and shakes his head.

“Nope, sorry girlie. This is a fight of a different kind. Ashur’s pet asked for you.” he replies. Gal’s brow furrows as he digs his fingers into her arm and jerks her from the cell. Ashur’s pet?

No. _No._

Charon.

“No fucking way.” she hisses, trying to twist her arm out of his grip. “I’m not doing that. Tell him to find someone else.”

She gets free for just a moment - and then stars explode in her vision as the guard buttstrokes her in the side of the head, knocking her to the floor. Before she can recover, the slaver jerks her wrists behind her back and handcuffs them together. Her shoulders nearly pop out of place when he yanks her up by the cuff chain.

“You don’t have a fucking choice, pretty lady. I don’t suggest you try that with Charon, unless you want him to hurt you very badly.”

She tries to spit in his eye, but her vision is still hazy and she misses. He growls and pinches the skin on her arm until she squeals.

“ _Enough._ Keep it up and you’ll arrive already in less-than-pristine condition.”

Gal takes a shuddering breath and relents. She’ll need her strength. She has to at least _try_ to fight Charon off, even if there’s no chance of winning. Maybe there’s a small one; after all, she’d already saved herself once.

Willow may be able to handle it, but she can’t. She’d rather die.

The room they drag her to is similar to the guard room in the slave quarters, but there are no other rooms connected to it. All it holds is a straw mattress. There’s no chair for a guard in the corner. She guesses they’re not going to watch.

The guard unlocks her handcuffs and pushes her through into the cell before she can do anything about it. Her balance is shot; she stumbles to hands and knees and the room around her spins. The leers at her for a moment before leaving. Gal crawls to the back of the cell and slumps against the wall, rubbing at her sore wrists and trying to will the throbbing in her head away.

It’s not long before the door opens again. Not one, but three guards escort Charon into the room, all of them with their rifles pointed at his back. He’s clearly considered to be much more dangerous than Gal is. Still, he doesn’t even try to fight. He just walks up to the cell door and waits patiently while one of them opens it.

“About time you traded up from that ugly hag.” one of the guards remarks. Charon doesn’t say anything in response. When the door opens, he walks through and stops just on the other side.

“We’ll leave you to it.” one of the slavers says suggestively. “Try to keep it down this time.” With that, the three take their leave and the room is empty.

Gal stumbles to her feet, head throbbing, and surveys the man in front of her. Up close, he’s even bigger than she’d thought; he must be almost seven feet tall, and none of it is fat. He doesn’t wear the same outfit at the other slaves; where she has a torn skirt and leather halter, he gets a faded black t-shirt and heavy trousers. He wears combat boots on his feet instead of the lace-up sandals. None of it serves to hide the raw strength in his form. When she looks closer, she sees that the leg of his pants are covered in something rust-coloured and only half-dry.

His face is purely, terrifyingly devoid of emotion. Like Willow, he has milky blue eyes and patchy hair, but where her features portray amusement or irritation, his are blank. It’s like his eyes stare straight through her. It’s horrifying.

Charon takes one step forward. Gal falls into a fighting stance and tries not to sway as her head swims.

“Stay the fuck away from me.” she says loudly, trying to sound intimidating. Surprisingly, Charon does stop. One eyebrow raises.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks doubtfully, clearly seeing the way she can’t stand straight. Gal shakes her head, trying to clear it, and glares.

“ _Me?_ I’m not the one cornering women in dirty cells and _raping_ them, you heartless bastard. Don’t get anywhere near me.”

Charon blinks at her, and sighs. He doesn’t look amused.

“Willow didn’t tell you. Bitch.” he mutters to himself, taking another step forward. Gal scurries back away from him.

“Oh, she told me alright. She told me all about the _privileges_ you get.” she shoots back. She has to brace a hand on the wall just to stay upright. When Charon moves closer again, she tries to step backwards, but her body has stopped working right. Her legs don’t keep up with her momentum and with a gasp, she starts to fall.

Strong hands catch her by the elbows, stopping her. Gal tries to struggle, but it’s like fighting with a stone statue. She doesn’t have the slightest chance of pulling away from Charon, and he knows it.

“Cut the shit, would you? Let me see your eyes.” he says irritably, grabbing both of her wrists in one hand. He turns them so the bare lightbulb in the center of the room is directly behind them and pulls each of her eyelids up in turn. Gal realizes dimly what he’s doing, and is immediately confused.

“Figures. Who hit you? Was it a guard?” he asks. Gal nods dumbly, still trying to tug her hands away weakly. Charon makes a rude sound, sets her on the ground, and lets go. She immediately backs up into the corner, as far away as she can get.

“Quit moving around so damn much. You’re going to make your concussion worse.” Charon says gruffly, crossing his arms. “Willow told me about you last time she was here. Said you came from a Vault and asked her to teach you to fight.”

Gal tries to get ahold of her breathing, but her heart is hammering against her ribs like it’s trying to break out. She’s grateful all her clothes are still on, but that could change any minute.

“So what? You were looking for someone who couldn’t fight you off? Because I promise you, I’ve learned a lot in the last few days.” she says threateningly. Charon rolls his eyes and crosses to the wall a few feet away to slide down to the ground.

“Yeah, you’re real fucking scary while you’re tripping over your own feet.” he jibes back. “Willow told me because she asked if I’d _train you._ Only with you having a fucking concussion, that’s clearly not going to happen. So instead, we’re going to sit here in silence and waste a couple hours doing nothing.”

Gal slumps back and gives him a disbelieving look. _Train_ her?

“But I thought -” she starts. Charon cuts her off.

“Well, you fucking thought wrong. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

It’s an eerie echo of what Willow had said last week. Gal gets it now, and flushes in embarrassment. Oh, God. She’d thought he was going to - but the relief cancels out the embarrassment pretty easily. How could she have known? Willow hadn’t said _anything._

A creak comes from the other side of the door. Charon swears and in a split second, he’s dragged her up by the wrists and tugged at her skirt and top, pulling them askew. Gal whimpers and tries to back away, but he holds her in place while he undoes his trousers one-handed and shoves the front of his underwear down. He turns around just as the door opens and the guard that had escorted her walks in.

“What the fuck is this?” Charon growls, one hand still gripping her arm as he faces the guard. The slaver doesn’t look very pleased to be presented with a full frontal from Charon. “She’s damaged goods. Somebody gave her a damn concussion. What am I going to do if I screw her and she dies?”

The guard looks up uneasily from the front of Charon’s trousers and shakes his head.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it. But she’s only had one fight, so if she dies, no big deal. There’s plenty more to replace her. I’m just here to tell you you’re headed straight to Haven after this to see Ashur.”

“Fine.” Charon says shortly. “Get the fuck out.”

Surprisingly, the guard doesn’t say anything to that. He just leaves. The minute the door is shut behind him, Charon lets go of her arm and faces away from her. She pulls the cloth back down into place as he re-zips his pants, her lip trembling a little bit. She can handle fighting. Killing someone, even _that_ is a hurdle she can overcome. But the feeling of someone ripping the clothes off her body is something else entirely.

“You decent?” Charon calls once he’s put everything back to rights. Gal mumbles something and he turns around. She looks away, shame-faced, but not before she catches the worried expression in his eyes.

“Oh, fuck. Please don’t fucking cry. I’m sorry, okay? I had to. I’m not really gonna do anything to you.” he says apologetically. When Gal looks up at him, eyes wet, he holds his hands up and backs away.

“Don’t tell me not to cry.” she says back tearily, collapsing in the corner and pulling her knees up to her chest. “You have no right to tell me what the fuck to do.”

He sighs and rubs at the spot between his eyes wearily. Picking a spot several feet down the wall from her, he sits down heavily and slings one arm over his bent knee. He lets his head tilt back and closes his eyes.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Cry if you want. I’ll stay over here.”

It sounds like it should be sarcastic. Surprisingly, it sounds sincere. A couple of drops escape her eyes, but crying makes her head hurt so bad that she really couldn’t keep it up even if she wanted to. She rubs the tears away and sets her head on top of her knees. There’s silence for a little bit as each of them is lost in their own thoughts.

“So if you and Willow don’t… you know… what do you do?” Gal asks hesitantly, when the silence gets too loud. Charon cracks one eye open and looks at her.

“We talk. Like normal people.” he pauses for a minute, then continues. “Willow and I are from the same town, so we knew each other before we ended up here. I have an image to uphold, and she helps me do it. We come in here, make some noises, maybe rearrange our clothes a bit. That’s all it takes. Everyone’s convinced.”

“Why do they need to be convinced of that?” she asks, her distress fading as her curiousity grows. Charon gives her a suspicious look, but answers anyway.

“Because, smoothskin, in order to survive in this place, you have to convince people you’re the baddest dog in the cage. If they think otherwise, they tear you apart. Plus, if I win enough fights, there’s a chance that I could win my freedom. I’m going to take Willow with me, and we’re getting out of this shithole.”

The scorn in his voice is obvious. Gal finds herself relaxing as he talks. He’s not as intimidating now with the two of them just sitting on the ground, having a conversation. At rest, the slope of his shoulders relax, and his gaze isn’t so cold when it’s not focused on her. The tight ball of fear in her chest unclenches slowly.

“I know you don’t owe me anything but…. don’t tell anyone that Willow and I knew each other before, please. And  if you could sniffle a little when you walk out of here…”

Gal snorts in amusement. She’d never have expected for the toughest fighter in the Pitt to be sitting in a cell with her, asking her for favours.

“I’ll make sure to tell them what a heartless monster you are. Pinch myself on the arm, get some tears worked up.” she says dryly.

Charon shoots her a sideways look. “No wonder Willow likes you. Smartass.”

The conversation lapses again. This time it’s more friendly. Gal pillows her head on her arms and closes her eyes, intending on taking a nap, but Charon makes a noise and she looks back up.

“Don’t fall asleep. You can’t sleep with a concussion. Actually, if you’re up to it, you should let me check where he hit you.”

Gal thinks it over, and nods slowly, so Charon climbs to his feet and walks over.

She can’t help but flinch when he kneels down next to her. She’s been hit, kicked, dragged around, and worse by a number of men since her introduction to the Wasteland, and between her bad experiences there and the constant training with Willow, it’s second nature to want to back away from an approaching person. Especially a man Charon’s size, who still has blood drying on his pants from the fighter she’d seen him kill a few hours earlier.

He waits for her to settle and point to the site before he touches her. His hands are gentle as they prod at her skull, pulling the hair out of the way so he can check for bruising and determine the extent of the injury.

“You should be fine. Seems like you’ve got a hard head.” he says gruffly. “I’ll ask for you again next week and we can start doing some training. Try not to get too roughed up before then.”

Gal’s spirits lift at that statement. Between Charon and Willow (who, Gal has figured out, is considered the second best fighter in the Pitt), she may really have a chance at surviving.

“Why are you helping me?” she asks, attempting to sound curious and not accusatory.

Charon turns back to his little spot on the wall and settles down. He moves like some type of large, predatory animal - graceful and dangerous. In every one of his slow movements, she feels like she can see the tension inside, waiting for a reason to snap.

“Because Willow likes you. She’s a good judge of character.” he says at first. He must catch that she’s not fully convinced by that, and continues. “You have good instincts. Don’t ever stop being suspicious of people. The minute you do, they’ll fuck you over.”

Gal’s not sure if that’s supposed to comfort her or make her distrust him more. Her instincts had told her before that any confirmed killer locked in a cell with her would take advantage. Now that that's not happening, she's not quite sure how to feel. 

They spend a little more time in silence together. Gal wants to ask questions - about the Pitt, about Charon, about how he and Willow ended up in this place, about him and why he didn’t take just because he could. But they feel way too personal for someone she’s just met, so she just curls up and enjoys being stationary for a while. It’s nice, even if her head still throbs. Charon leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. She gets the sense that even though he looks like he’s resting, maybe even drowsing, his eyes would snap open the minute she moved.

Soon, too soon, they do snap open, and he stalks over to her again, though he doesn’t pull her up against him or even make her stand. When the guard comes in, making a little more noise this time (as if he doesn’t want to get the same eyeful as the last visit), Charon faces her and tugs on the front of his trousers a little, as if he’s adjusting or buttoning them back up.

“Time’s up. Ashur’s getting impatient.” The guard says, tapping on the bars with the barrel of his rifle. He’s got his compliment of other men behind him, ready to escort the Pitt’s most dangerous slave to wherever it is that Ashur stays.. Charon looks down at her significantly; _remember you’re supposed to be upset,_ that looks says.

She can do upset, all right. It’s not like she doesn’t have a plethora of bad memories to use as fodder. Gal scrunches up her nose, pinches herself on the arm, and in a few seconds has fat tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. She sniffles a few times, and lets out a couple soft sobs as if she’s trying to stay quiet. It’s very convincing, if she can toot her own horn a little. Convincing enough that it makes Charon blink and look a little embarrassed, before he turns away and walks up to the gate.

“I like this one.” He growls as they unlock the bars. The menacing persona she’d been so afraid of when he’d first shown up falls back into place neatly. “Get her a stimpack for her concussion, I don’t want her dying.”

The guard rolls his eyes, but Charon just walks out like he doesn’t expect refusal. He doesn’t glance back at her at all as they move towards the exit. One lone guard waits for her as she picks herself up and starts stumbling towards the door. She wipes her teary eyes on her arm and lets him yank her down the hallway and back towards the slave quarters without struggle.

“Not so energetic now, are you? Good, my shift’s over in five minutes and I’m too tired for that shit.” The guard sighs. He doesn’t appear to be moved by Gal’s tears at all. Unsurprised at his cold attitude, she lets out a fresh wail at his words, as if she’s really upset by them. He stops them by a medical room so he can beg a stimpack off the doctor inside and jabs it into her thigh like he’s trying to stab her. It hurts, but the relief that comes with her lessening headache is worth it.

The women all look up briefly when she’s dragged back into the guard room and shoved through the door, but they go back to what they were doing just as quick. What a cold group they are. Only Willow stands and waits for her.

In complete contrast to what she looks like on the outside, right now she feels the most hopeful she’s been since walking out of the Vault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: references to and implied dubcon/noncon sex, murder, a concussion.
> 
> I didn't want to give away the game by telling you the assault was a misunderstanding, so hopefully that didn't affect anyone too much! As always, comments and critiques are appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salinea told me that she might faint if I update again in the same 24 hours, so let's see if that happens :D

Gal stumbles when she’s shoved into the cell, just like before. This time though, there’s someone there to catch her. Gal feels the thin arm wrap around her shoulders to keep her upright, and the next few tears that slide down her cheeks aren’t quite as fake as the others. 

Gal waits until they’re in their spot at the window before she turns off the waterworks. Wiping the tears off on her arm as best she can, she turns a glare on the other woman. 

“Why didn’t you  _ tell me  _ what that was about.” She hisses lowly. Willow, who had begun to look a little worried about her crying, relaxes. 

“If I’d have known you were such a good actress, tourist, I would have.” She says. Gal glares at her again and Willow manages to look a bit sorry. “I didn’t want you to give it away by not reacting right. His rep is important if we ever want to get the fuck out of here. Sending you was a big damn risk.” 

Gal sees the look on her face and gets the impression that Willow doesn’t help anyone else out like this. It’s one thing to give her some fighting lessons, and let her hang around while Gal gets used to Pitt life, but this is way bigger than that. Both Willow and Charon had put their faith into Gal, that she wouldn’t give them away or betray them if they helped her. 

That’s pretty big. She’s not sure what she did to deserve it. But she’s terribly, incredibly grateful. 

Selfishly, she hopes that Charon doesn’t win his freedom any time soon. 

\--

Gal’s second fight comes before she knows it. Just a week later, she’s yanked out of the living quarters again rudely. No one else had been taken out yet, so she’s either the first to be picked, or she’s fighting a male. If possible, she’s even more nervous than she was for the first fight. Then, she’d had no idea of what was waiting for her. Now, she knows what she’s going to have to do to win. The warmth of the woman’s skin under her fingertips, the resistance as Gal had twisted her head sharply. The way the life had left her eyes as she collapsed to the floor. 

This guard doesn’t give any pointers. Clearly, if he’s betting, it’s not on her. She’s tossed into the holding area without ceremony and left to wait for a while. There’s a bigger crowd this time, she thinks. More footsteps, more conversation. She must have put on an okay show last time. 

God, that makes her sick. How could people stand to watch something like this? 

She hears the door slam across the arena in the other holding area. It alerts her to get ready. Darting up to the grate, she tries to peer out and see where the barrels are, but there’s not enough space. 

With a screech, the grate starts lifting. Gal wastes no time in ducking under and into the arena. 

Her opponent does the same. It’s the woman she’d tried to talk to her first day in the slave’s quarters, the heavily scarred one that had told her to buzz off. Gal feels a little vindication that she’s going to get revenge. Then she immediately pales and thrusts that thought away. 

What a sick idea. Nobody deserves a death like this. 

The barrels drop. Then, something else does too, something that glints in the lighting over the arena. About 50 feet to her right, a combat knife plunges point-first into the dirt floor of the arena and sticks there. 

Gal doesn’t even hesitate. She takes off for the knife as fast as she possible can, pushing away the fatigue in her legs and the oppressing feel of the radiation in the air. Her opponent darts in the opposite direction - there must be two knives. Gal needs this one if she’s going to win. 

She reaches the knife, yanks it out of the ground, and hurriedly settles into the stance Willow had taught her. They’d done some knife work with a short piece of wood. It was different than fighting with bare fists - with fists, you can take a few hits and still come out on top. With a knife, any move could mean your death. 

Similarly armed, her opponent approaches in a crouch, a smug look on her face. She knows that Gal is a beginner. She’s convinced this will be an easy fight. Gal’s not sure what she’s up against, but she’s going to try her hardest to prove the woman wrong.

The woman slashes out with the knife. Gal twists to get out of the way, but a neat line of red opens up on her forearm. She can’t even feel it, with all the adrenaline running through her. Gal retaliates by taking a shot at her opponent’s side; the woman blocks with her free hand. She tries to keep a hold of Gal’s wrist, but Gal manages to slip out of her grasp and dart out of reach. 

They don’t have the time to dance around each other, not with the radiation pumping through the air at this rate. The woman comes at her again; Gal tries to block, but fails. The knife sinks into her thigh. Gal hisses and completely forgets her training. Desperately, she jabs at the hand holding the knife with her own and the woman is forced to let go and back off to prevent losing a hand. 

Now her opponent is unarmed, but Gal has a knife in her leg and her movement is severely hampered. She’s clearly not the expert in this fight. 

_ Don’t rush,  _ a gravelly voice chides in her head,  _ if you lose your cool and stop fighting defensively, you’ll be dead before you know it.  _

Gal resists the urge to charge and instead yanks the knife from her leg, tucking it into the waistband of her skirt for safekeeping. Then she moves forward steadily, backing the woman up towards a wall where she can’t get away. 

Distantly, she hears the crowd cheering. They seem to be enjoying this immensely. Gal isn’t, and clearly her opponent isn’t either; both of them are breathing heavily, steps slowed by the radiation that’s pumping into their bodies. 

Gal feints with the knife and comes around with a hook while the woman’s distracted. It connects at her temple, knocking her back a few feet. With an angry cry, the woman leaps forward, reaching for the knife at her waistband. Gal stumbles backwards and slashes out with the combat knife. She feels it sink into something soft as she falls to the dirt, the woman’s weight on top of her. 

The scarred woman makes a choking noise and goes limp, rolling off of Gal to one side. The movement takes the knife with her. Gal scrambles after it, but realizes quickly that there’s no need. The knife is sticking out of the woman’s stomach, leaking red all over her skin and the ground. A foul stench permeates the air; Gal’s hit her intestines, then. Unless she gets immediate medical care, she’s not going to live. But she is going to die very, very slowly if Gal leaves her like this. 

The fight isn’t over. Her opponent is still alive. The grates are still down. 

Gal takes the knife from the waist-band of her skirt (she doesn’t want to pull the one in the woman’s stomach out… no unnecessary pain) and steels her resolve. The woman looks up at her, eyes bright with pain. Her hand reaches weakly for her stomach, trying to stop the bleeding. Her breath comes in pants. 

Gal tilts her chin up and draws the knife across. 

The spray of blood catches her by surprise, though she should have expected it. Doctor’s daughter and all. The brightness leaves the woman’s eyes slowly; her hand stills on her stomach. Blood drips down Gal’s face. She has to wipe it away on her arm to keep it from getting into her eyes. 

When she hears the screeching of the grates, she drops the knife and struggles to her feet. This time, she vomits inside the arena instead of in the holding area. 

The guard grimaces when she stumbles in, covered in blood. 

“Hold it right there. Hands up. I have to search you.” Gal shakenly holds her hands up. Groaning about the blood getting on his hands, he runs them over her skirt, top, and each boot to make sure she hasn’t held on to one of the knives, then points at a basin full of water in the corner. 

“Go wash that shit off, then we’ll fix your leg and give you radaway. Don’t fucking touch anything.” 

Gal obeys. The cool water feels good on her skin after all her exertion, but the added radiation makes her dizzy. She’s pretty sure she’s really close to permanent damage from all the exposure. Still, the guard is as good as his word; once she’s relatively clean, he straps her down on the table, jabs her with a couple stimpacks, and sets up the bag of radaway. Then, just like the first time, she’s taken back to the quarters and dropped off. 

After that, the killing gets easier. 

She falls into sort of a routine. Every morning, before breakfast, Willow does round after round of exercises that Gal tries to keep up with. Throughout the day, they work on fighting - unarmed, armed, on the ground, against a wall, multiple opponents, any situation that Gal might possibly be put in. In the evenings, they talk, about the Pitt or the Wasteland or Willow’s home, in Underworld. 

“How’d you end up here?” Gal finally asks one day, when she thinks they’ve been friends long enough to justify the prying. Willow, who’s got her head tilted back against the stone and her eyes closed like she’s trying to take a nap, cracks an eyelid at her. Her eyebrows furrow a little bit, but she answers. 

“I told you I worked as the guard to Underworld.” Gal nods. “We got sold out by somebody. Ghouls make good slaves if you’re looking for hard laborers - we live a long time and we’re tough. Plus, the upkeep is cheap as hell - irradiated water will fix us up just as well as a stimpack will. And when your slave looks like chewed up boot leather, nobody wants to take it from you.” Willow sees the beginnings of a protest on Gal’s face and barks out a laugh. 

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, tourist. I know what most people think about ghouls. I was a smoothskin once too, you know.” 

Gal tries to imagine the woman in front of her with unripped skin, a full head of hair. It’s pretty much impossible. Willow’s hard exterior matches her tough-as-nails attitude; somehow imagining her any other way seems to undercut that. 

“Still seems unfair.” Gal says stubbornly, then concedes the subject. “So, what? They just rounded you guys up and brought you here?” 

Willow shakes her head. “Nah. We’re not that blind. We had a system in place in case something like this ever happened. Charon and I stayed behind to keep them occupied long enough for the others to get out, and we just ended up being the lucky sacrifices. Free room and board, a job - what more could a girl ask for?” 

“I don’t know, maybe… dinner that doesn’t taste rancid?” Gal responds rhetorically, looking at the grey goop in the bowl she’s holding. The food isn’t great on any particular day, but today it’s not at all palatable. And Gal’s tastebuds have gotten much less picky since she came to the Wasteland. 

“So what did Charon do in Underworld? Guard duty too?” 

Something about this question seems to bug Willow, like she’s not quite sure how to answer. 

“No, he works for a man named Azrukhal. Mostly he bounces at Azrukhal’s bar, sometimes he runs errands.”

“He got this good at fighting by tossing out drunks?” Gal asks doubtfully. Willow rolls her eyes. 

“Yeah, drunks can get pretty violent. No, of course not. Charon hasn’t always worked for Azrukhal, but it’s not really my place to say. You want to know, ask him yourself next time you see him.” 

Got to find something to talk about while we’re pretending to have sex, Gal thinks. 

Her chance comes soon enough. Within a week, the guards are at the door again, yelling for her. Gal’s grateful that it’s not for a fight; Willow had just come back from one, and while she’s not admitting to being hurt, Gal’s almost entirely certain that she has a few cracked ribs. She can’t convince Willow to take it easy if she’s similarly injured. 

“Am I going to have to crack you in the head again?” The slaver asks as she walks up to the bars. His name is Jenkins, she’s figured out. He’s surprisingly handsome for a slaver; every time Gal sees him on duty, she wants to rearrange his face so that it reflects his nasty soul. She could take the chance now, but she doesn’t. It’s not much of a fair fight, her unprotected, unarmed self against him, his rifle, and the guard on duty. So instead she just shakes her head and lets herself be escorted back to the room they’d been in last time. 

This time, Charon’s already there. He’s leaned up against the back of the cell, arms crossed over his muscular chest. He looks clean of blood this time. He doesn’t even spare the guards a look as she’s locked in, just stalks up to her and wraps one large hand around the back of her neck so he can draw her in close. She doesn’t have to fake her nervousness with all six-plus feet of him towering over her menacingly. He’s so close that she can smell him, dirt and copper and underneath that, something musky. 

The minute the door slams shut, he lets go and backs off, hands once again held up to show no harm. 

“Any mishaps with the butt of someone’s rifle today?” He asks in place of a greeting. Gal shakes her head and gives him a tentative smile. 

“No. And… thanks for sticking up for me after last time. They fixed me up before they took me back to the slave quarters.” 

Charon just hums in response and takes a cautious step forward. 

“Let’s get to work. I need to see what Willow’s taught you so I know what we need to work on. Don’t hold back.” 

Gal looks up at the behemoth of a man in front of her, gulps, and settles back into her fighting stance. 

Charon approaches slowly and takes a few slow jabs at her, seeing how she reacts, whether she dodges or blocks. She finds herself able to keep up for the most part, until he adds kicks in. The superior reach of his legs is something that she doesn’t have any idea how to handle. After a few minutes, he turns to crowding her up against a wall, getting low and close like he’s rushing her. He seems satisfied by the way she handles it. 

Then, without warning, he steps in and grabs her, far more quickly than she could have expected. Before she can react, he tosses her flat on her back and traps her underneath him. Gal throws her arms up to protect her face from blows. With as much force as she can, she thrusts her hips upwards and sends him careening forward so that he has to catch himself on his hands; the minute he does, she goes right for the seam on his trousers with a closed fist. 

Charon stops her before she does any real damage, as she’d expected he would. She’s not under any illusion that this is a fair fight. Every punch that Charon has thrown has been deliberately slow to give her time to react. But he looks fairly impressed so she thinks she did alright. 

“Not bad.” He grunts, climbing off and pushing to his feet. He offers her a hand up, which she takes gratefully. “You’ve been training with Willow for two weeks?” 

“Yeah, something like that. I’ve only had two fights so far.” She replies, brushing off the back of her skirt and trying to slow her racing heart. 

“Willow’s a good teacher, but you’re a hell of a student. The woman you fought in the second fight was no pushover.” 

The praise makes her smile a little without thinking. He seems a little surprised to see the expression on her face, but doesn’t comment.    
  
“Let’s get started.” 

If she had thought Willow was a taskmaster, she’s taking all that back now. Charon is patient in teaching, and merciless in practice. Fighting someone so physically  _ large  _ is a whole different ball game than she’s used to. Moves that have worked against other opponents fail spectacularly against him.    
  
“You won’t be able to win on force alone. You’re too small and others will beat you in strength every time.” he advises after a failed attempt to leg-sweep him to the ground. “But if your technique is better than theirs, you’ll always have the advantage.” 

He adjusts her stance and shows her how she was connecting with his leg in the wrong area. On her third try, with his help, Charon goes down like a pile of bricks. It’s only one move, but it feels like a huge accomplishment.    
  
After the misunderstanding (to put it lightly) the last time she was here, it’s amazing how comfortable she feels around Charon. Maybe because of how much Willow trusts him, or maybe because he’d been put into a situation that he easily could have taken advantage of - and didn’t - but she finds that the longer he teaches, the less fear she has when he grips her wrist or looms over her. 

The guards are gone for longer this time than the last. After a couple hours, when Gal is wet with sweat and panting, Charon calls a halt to their practice and fumbles for something on his belt. He detaches a dull-coloured canteen wrapped in dirty leather and hands it to her. 

“Good work. Drink this before you pass out. We don’t want to overdo it and then have you walk into a fight tomorrow completely fucked up from training.” 

Gal takes the canteen gratefully and gulps down several large swallows. When she’s done, she wipes her mouth and hands him the canteen so he can down the rest. Together, they collapse against the stone wall. 

“I feel like rubber.” she admits. Any adjustment to her posture makes her wince as it stretches sore muscles. She’s a little proud to see some dampness on Charon’s shirt as well. Hopefully teaching is at least a little helpful for him too. 

“It’ll pass. Make sure you eat everything they give you or you won’t recover.” he replies. Gal makes a face. 

“You sound like my dad.” she says with a snort. 

They sit in silence for a minute, both catching their breaths. Gal watches her companion out of the corner of her eye. If she didn’t know better, she’d say that he was ignoring her. One hand draped across a bent knee, eyes lingering on the door across the room, he looks like he’s lost in thought. She thinks instead that maybe he’s aware of how nervous his stare makes people, and so chooses to look away. 

She sees him in a different light now. Broad shoulders, a well-defined jaw, and a confident posture give a completely different impression when she’s not fearing for her life. He looks - handsome. She thinks of his hand wrapped around her neck, playing the cruel dominator, and gets butterflies in her stomach for an entirely different reason. 

“So, you come from Underworld?” she blurts out in a desperate attempt to distract herself. Charon glances over, brows furrowed. 

“...yeah.” he says cautiously. 

“Will you… tell me about it? I didn’t get a chance to see much of the notorious Capital Wasteland.” 

That mollifies him somewhat. He looks up to the ceiling, as if thinking, and then speaks. 

“As far as towns go, it’s not bad. Big settlements in the Capital Wasteland aren’t very common, and it’s hard to get in and even harder to make a living in them. We’ve got a doctor, a shopkeeper, hotel, all the shit you need to make a good settlement. Only downside is that the area outside is covered in Super Mutants, so we don’t get many traders.” 

Gal smiles. What a pragmatic description. “What do you do there?” 

This time, the look he gives her is past cautious, all the way to suspicious. It’s really strange, how violently he and Willow react to questions about him. Why? 

“I’m a bouncer.” he says shortly. “I work in a bar.” 

She tries to think of another question that could draw out more information, but nothing comes to mind that won’t put him more on edge. She’ll have to let it drop for now. 

“I’ve never been in a bar.” she says mournfully, kicking at a pebble with her sandal. “Only had alcohol a couple times.” 

That segue relaxes Charon’s shoulders a bit. 

“Not that the alcohol out here is worth drinking, but if you play your cards right, you’ll get your chance.” he replies. The thought makes her feel a little better, strangely. She doesn’t think Charon would say it if it wasn’t true. 

There’s a thump at the door. Gal scrambles to her feet, just as Charon leaps up and crosses over to her. A large hand settles at her waist. She looks up at him, grins, and then turns on the waterworks. With the bruises she’s gained from their sparring, the whole act will be even more believable this time. With his straight face, it’s not easy to tell, but she thinks he’s a little amused. 

She’s got a different guard this time. She knows it’s for her, because Charon apparently demands no less than three wherever he goes. The guard is younger, probably in his mid-twenties, and he frowns at Gal’s crying. 

That’s a strange response. She comes through the cell door obediently as the guard keeps an eye on Charon, who is settled back against the wall and giving him a cold look. The guard neither shoves her nor pokes her in the back with his rifle; instead, he waves her on. She lets out a muffled sob, rubs at a particularly nasty bruise on her arm, and meanders out of the room. 

“Do you need a stimpack?” the guard asks suddenly as they’re heading back to the slave quarters. Gal blinks in surprise and looks back at him. He eyes the cuts and spots along her exposed skin with unease. A guard with a conscience? She was starting to think they didn’t exist. 

“Uh…” honestly, she really doesn’t. The marks are no worse than anything Willow’s given her, but that would probably sound suspicious, so she nods a little and stutters out a ‘yes’. The guard leads her to one of the medical rooms and swipes a stimpack from a box on the counter. 

“Quit wasting our medical supplies on those.” the doctor in the room says scornfully, flicking his fingers at Gal. She supposes she is part of the ‘those’. “They’ll live regardless.” 

“She’s a fighter. And she can’t fight if she’s banged up.” the guard says back. He mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, ‘heartless bastard’ and leads her back out of the room. 

Surprisingly, he doesn’t administer it himself. Instead, he presses it into her hand with a smile. 

“Here. It’s best to use them as close as possible to the source of the, uh… injury.” the smile becomes a little strained at this. She blinks down at the stimpak in surprise and then stuffs it into her skirt, where it can’t be seen. 

“Thanks.” Gal says, a little bit suspiciously. There was a time in her life where people did things for each other just because. Now, she expects any help to come with strings attached. She doesn’t know if he’s angling for something, but paranoia tells her to assume that he is. 

The guard looks like he wants to say something, but instead, he just clears his throat and motions her on. 

The front room of the slave quarters is suspiciously empty when they step in. The guard is nowhere to be found. Her own guard looks around suspiciously, checks the cell door, then shrugs and lets her in. 

“Stay safe.” he says in farewell. She turns her back and doesn’t reply. 

A thud from the room off to the left - her and Willow’s room, as much as it could be anyone’s - catches her attention. Making sure the stimpak is secure in her skirt, she crosses to the doorway, peaks around the corner - and curses. 

Willow stands in the middle of the room, panting. Her lip is split and she’s clutching her side with one hand. Six women surround her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: violence, references to fake sexual assault.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I started this chapter several times before I decided where I wanted to go with it, but I think I've finally figured out a good chunk of what's going to happen next. I wanted to rush it out, so it's relatively un-betaed. Thanks as always for reading!

Gal doesn’t even think. She runs in and slams into one with her shoulder, knocking the woman to the ground. Another hisses a curse at her and grabs for her arm, but Gal darts away and joins Willow in the middle of the circle.

“What the fuck is going on here?” she demands. No one answers, not even Willow. The ghoulette does give her a grateful look, but then one of the women rushes forward and they’re put on the defensive.

Willow, with her cracked ribs and a limp in her step, is in no shape to fight. Still, she gets the upper hand on her first opponent and whips her foot right into the other’s stomach. The woman stumbles back and falls into another, knocking them both down.

Gal isn’t damaged, but she’s tired and a little weak from her work with Charon. She has to put extra force into her moves to throw her opponent over her hip. The next grazes her jaw with a right hook. There’s no way they’re going to win against six women. But they have to fight, so fight they do.

A blonde-haired, thick-waisted woman gets a good shot in at Willow’s cracked ribs, leaving the ghoulette hunched over in pain. Gal tries to cover for her, but there’s too many. They’re forced back towards the wall. Another, the leader of the pack by the looks of it, takes a step forward and pull something out of her clothing.

It’s a piece of metal, the end of a screwdriver or something, that’s been filed into a sharp point. Gal pales. It’s no knife, but it doesn’t need to be to do real damage to them. The woman eyes them both and steps forward.

“What the hell is going on in here?” a male voice calls from behind the crowd of women. Swiftly, it parts down the middle. Standing in the doorway are her guard and the cell guard, both with their rifles settled into their shoulders. Her guard spots the woman holding the shank and raises the barrel of his rifle to aim at her chest.

“Drop it. Now. And kick that over here to us. Any of you go for it, you’re done.” the cell guard growls. The woman, knowing she’s outclassed, drops the shank and kicks it. It skitters over to the guards. One drops down and picks it up, his rifle never faltering.

“All of you, get in the front room. Surprise inspection. Now.” the guard barks. Like obedient dogs, the women turn and trudge out the door to the central room. Gal has to sling an arm around Willow’s shoulders to help her stumble forward.

“What the hell was that?” Gal murmurs as they make their way across.

Willow grimaces against the pain. “They figured they’d jump me while I was down, I guess. Turns out it takes six other people and a whole line of busted ribs to get me out of the game.”

Gal snorts and gives Willow a fond look. “It’ll take more than that. I should have left you alone so you could teach them a lesson.”

Willow doesn’t call her out on the obvious falsehood, just twitches a smile and keeps walking.

They stand and wait as one of the guards calls for back-up. When three other guards arrive, two split off to search the rooms, and the others line them up for patdowns. Their faces are grim; probably wondering where a slave could have gotten something as dangerous as a shank. Gal wonders nervously right along with them. They could have been killed at any moment, it seems.

She realizes with a start that she still has the stimpak in her skirt. What would they do if they found it? Surely nothing good; a stimpack can be a dangerous weapon all on its own. It only takes a little air bubble in someone’s bloodstream to kill them.

She gets another lucky break when her light-haired guard stops in front of her. His eyes dart down to the spot where she’d stuck the stimpak. He knows it’s there. His hand stills when he feels it, presses harder to confirm the shape - and then moves on. He’s not going to call her out. Gal’s relief is palpable.

They check all the women. No more contraband is found, but after everything has been searched, the woman who had been holding the shank is jerked away by the arm and led out of the cell. The other five women who had been ganging up on Willow - recognizable by their assortment of bruises, cuts, and black eyes - give them a scathing look as the guards file out of the cell.

“Congratulations, tourist,” Willow sighs as she clutches her side, “You’ve just earned yourself the privilege of looking over your shoulder twenty-four hours a day.”

It’s Willow’s way of saying thank you. They retreat to their room, alert for more sneak attacks and still shaking with the adrenaline of being attacked. It seems an unlikely time to get jumped, though, with the guards on high alert.

“What was I supposed to do, watch them beat the shit out of you?” she asks drily. Willow cocks a grin at her as she settles onto the windowsill.

“Well, that’s what a lot of people would have done. Maybe your self-preservation instincts are shot.” she jabs back. Then, Willow must move something wrong, because she groans in pain and grabs her side again. Gal had seen a few girls get good shots in on that side, so the pain from the cracked ribs has to be near unbearable.

“Hey, I, uh… I’ve got something for that.” Gal says cryptically. She digs the stimpak out, careful not to expose it to anyone else in the room, and rolls it across to Willow under the cover of her legs. Willow’s eyes widen when she sees it; she picks it up and clutches it tight to her side, where it can’t be seen.

“The guard gave it to me, for my, uh…. ‘traumatic experience’.” Gal explains with an amused smile. Willow looks surprisingly touched by the gesture, as if she really wouldn’t expect Gal to give it to her.

“You sure you want to waste this on me, tourist? Like I said, we ghouls can use water just the same.”

Gal rolls her eyes. “Use it, before one of us gets in trouble for having it.”

Willow shrugs and eases the needle into the meat of her hip. The look of relief and gratefulness on her face is clear. Once the stimpak is empty, she pulls the needle out and quickly flicks it through the bars of the window and out into the arena.

“That’s a lot better. I hate cracked ribs.” Willow sighs as she eases back against the window sill. “How was your tryste with Charon?”

Gal narrows her eyes at the amused expression on Willow’s face. “It went well. If neither of you kill me through training, nobody else is going to be able to.”

Willow lets out a bark of laughter. “I’ll keep that in mind for tomorrow’s training.”

The laughter gets louder when Gal flops down with a moan.

\--

“Hey! Blondie! Get the fuck out here!”

Gal groans, mashes the heel of her hand into her eye, and stumbles to her feet. The late afternoon sun is streaming through the window where Willow is lounging. The dirty looks and whispers have only intensified since the attack on Willow, so they’ve taken to splitting their sleeping shifts.

“Fight?” she asks sleepily. Willow shakes her head and points out the window, where a couple of men are facing off. The sight has become bizarrely commonplace to her. She’s had three more fights in the last few weeks, and won all of them with increasing ease.

“I’m too tired for this.” she sighs, and heads for the front. She’s only been asleep a few hours, she thinks.

The guard’s waiting for her inside the set of double bars. Her guard, the friendly one who’d slipped her the stimpak, is on duty. He gives her a tight smile, then frowns when the other guard grabs her by the hair and jerks her through the door. Gal grits her teeth, but doesn’t react. It’s not worth it.

“Cool it, Juarez. She’s not doing anything wrong.” he reprimands, to her surprise. Juarez ignores him and marches her out the room and down the hallway. They’re headed to her favourite empty cell. She makes a few half-hearted attempts at escape, just to keep up the image, but nothing to get herself injured. Still, she can feel a few strands of hair yanked from her scalp by his grip.

He marches her into the room with his hand still tangled in her hair. Charon is already in the cell with his back against the wall. They stop just before the cell door, but the guard makes no move to open it.

“You two have been quiet lately. Getting bored of this one too?” the guard asks Charon. His hand slips from her hair to grope at her chest instead. The movement pulls her back against him. She grimaces at the hot breath on her ear, but tries not to lash out.

“She’s in peak condition. Guess she’s not a good enough lay for you to bother getting rough. Good enough for me though, I figure.”

His hand barely closes around what he’s looking for before he’s yanked away from her with a grunt. Charon is up against the steel bars of the cell, one muscular arm wrapped around the guard’s neck. The slaver bucks like a frightened animal. Charon tugs the rifle from his fingers and squeezes more, until the slaver’s face starts turning purple.

“Lay another fucking hand on her and I’ll rip every limb you have from its socket one by one.” the ghoul growls. The slaver makes a choking, high-pitched noise and scrabbles weakly at the bars.

Just before he appears ready to pass out, Charon lets go and backs away from the bars. He moves the rifle up into the pocket of his shoulder and points it at the man with practiced ease.

“Put her in here.” he commands coldly. “Now.”

The guard fumbles with the keys and finally gets the door open. He reaches for her to shove her in, but stops just before fingers touch skin. Gal takes pity on him and slips through.

The minute the gate is slammed closed behind her, Charon drops the magazine from the rifle and ejects the chambered round, catching it in midair. The unloaded gun goes skittering through the cell bars and along the floor to the back of the room.

“Get out.” he says shortly. The door shuts behind the shaken slaver as fast as humanly possible.

There’s a bit of silence as Gal rubs at her aching scalp and watches the door slam. Charon steps back from the middle of the cell and leans against the wall again as if nothing had happened.

“...thanks.” Gal says after a short silence. “Have they been giving you a lot of trouble about what you, uh, do or don’t do in here?”

Charon sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose tiredly. He looks more stressed than usual, though Gal doesn’t think she would notice if she didn’t spend so much time watching him for cues during their practice.

“They’re getting a little suspicious, I think. There’s only so many times you can get caught with all your clothes on and still convince people you’re doing something else.”   
  
As if to confirm the truth of this, the door eases open again. Charon pulls her close as someone slips through the door, shuts it, and settles back against the wall, facing them. It’s her light-haired guard, and he doesn’t look pleased at what he sees.

“What the fuck is this?” Charon hisses, turning so his back is to the guard and backing her up against the far wall of the cell. She lets him crowd her into the wall. Shifting against the concrete makes enough noise to cover there whispering.

“No idea.” she murmurs back. “He’s been looking out for me. He gave me a stimpack after the last time I was here. I think he likes me.”

The flat look on Charon’s face says he doesn’t like that answer one bit.

A moment passes, and Gal realizes that even with someone in the room watching them, Charon isn’t going to do much more than manhandle her around. Their cover is going to be blown wide open if clothes don’t start coming off. With a significant look, she wraps her hand around the collar of Charon’s shirt and yanks him down to meet her lips.

As far as kisses go, it’s pretty pleasant. Charon’s lips are dry and rough, but she finds the texture surprisingly appealing. Really, she only has a few hurried fumbles with Paul from Vault 101 to compare to; he’d been too excited about the whole thing and the resulting kisses had been over-enthusiastic and very, very wet.

When it’s clear that Charon isn’t going to respond, she pulls back just a bit so she can mutter against his lips. There’s a strange look in his eyes when she meets them with her own.

“Do something, before they figure it out and I lose my training partner.”

For a moment, she thinks he’ll refuse. Then suddenly, hands wrap around the backs of her thighs and Charon yanks her up to meet his lips again. Gal lets out a very unsexy squeak against his mouth; he takes advantage of that to swipe his tongue across her lower lip.

It’s really quite amazing how everything goes from 0 to 60 in a few seconds. Gal is dizzy and breathless and her heart is thudding against her chest like it might burst out at any moment. Her hands run up his back almost of their own accord as he pushes her skirt up around her waist. His head drops to the crook of her neck, a hot tongue trailing across just before he nips at her skin. She’s not sure if she gasps or sobs at the feeling.

“That’s enough.” comes a firm voice from behind Charon. Charon stills, but doesn’t set her down. She peeks over and sees her guard standing just behind the bars, his mouth twisted into an angry grimace.

“I said, _that’s enough._ Put her down.”

Charon turns to face the guard, holding her up easily, even without the support of the wall. The look on his face is cold. Without warning, he drops her. Gal nearly stumbles to the ground, but manages to recover at the last moment.

“This is over for today. Gal, come over here.”

She starts at the sound of her name. Gal wasn’t even aware any of the guards knew it; proper names from the guards are usually reserved for the best fighters, with the rest of them getting nicknames ranging from the mundane to the down-right insulting. She’s probably more responsive to ‘Blondie’ nowadays than anything.

She shoots an uncertain look at Charon, but he doesn’t break eye contact with the guard. Unsurely, she stumbles over to the door, pulling her skirt back into place and rubbing at her neck. The light-haired guard drops his gaze to unlock the door and escort her through.

A loud crash sends her stumbling into him in surprise. When she turns, Charon is flat up against the closed cell door with one hand slung across the outside of the bars. Even knowing him as she does, the look on his face turns her blood to ice. His gaze never returns to her; it stays on the back of the guard’s head as he steers her out of the room and into the empty hallway. Despite his bravery in standing up to Charon, the guard looks nervous.

“...you didn’t have to do that.” Gal says to him quietly as he shuts the door behind them. She’s touched by his gesture, while at the same time a bit annoyed at being robbed of her Charon time and suspicious of his intentions.

He gives her a lopsided smile and shrugs. “I couldn’t just stand by and let that happen. It’s not right.”

“You’re going to get in trouble.” she points out pragmatically. The idea doesn’t seem to bother him.

“It’s worth it.” he says simply. There’s not much to say to that, so she doesn’t say anything.

“...my name is Rory.” he says suddenly, halfway back to the slave quarters. “I know yours, obviously, so I’ll just say it’s nice to meet you.”

Gal smiles, though she’s facing away from him as she walks so he can’t see it.

“Considering where we are, will you be offended if I don’t say the same?”

The huff of laughter is all the answer she needs.

\--

She doesn’t see Rory for a couple days after that. When he comes to escort her back after her next fight, he has a broken nose and a limp in his step.

\--

“I don’t like the way the guards have been eyeing us lately.” Willow mutters to her a few days later. “It’s like they’ve got something planned.” 

Gal nods tightly, noting the way one of them watches her and Willow as they’re doling out evening chow and spoons. Juarez catches her gaze and smiles nastily. She’s not overly scared; he hasn’t dared to mistreat her since Charon nearly choked him to death.

“What do you think it is?” Gal asks, after they’ve received their portion of slop for the day and are settled back in their spot on the windowsill. “Something to do with Charon?”

Willow shrugs. Gal admires the way she shovels the goop into her mouth without grimacing. She’s been here almost six months and she still can’t do the same.

“Dunno. Probably not. We’ve been having less fights lately. I hope Ashur’s not losing interest.”

That would be bad for them, Gal agrees. Their continued survival in (relative) comfort is thanks to his bloodthirstiness. Without it, their choices of employment are much less palatable.

There was a time in Gal’s life where such a statement would sicken her. Thinking about the Vault and her father just makes her chest hurt, though, so she turns her thoughts away.

“Last time the fights started trickling off, it was because…” Willow stops and looks away thoughtfully. “...oh. Well, let’s hope not.”

“What?” Gal asks, but Willow doesn’t answer.

\--

They find out before long.

En masse, the women are marched out and down the hallways towards the arena. The mass of women is abuzz with speculation, and the guards seem especially high-spirited. Willow stays quiet and calm, quieter than even her usual, which makes Gal nervous. When they reach the entrance to the arena, the guards shove them in unceremoniously and clang the gate shut behind them. It feels crowded and stifling with so many women in here. 

Gal gets jostled one way, then another. An older women glares down at her when Gal stumbles into her. Then, a rough hand wraps around her bicep and yanks her backwards, towards the guard area and away from the arena.

“Stay back here until the gate opens.” Willow says, dropping her arm. “We’ll be safer that way in the initial rush.”

“What’s going on?” Gal asks, feeling a light sweat break out on her forehead. “Why are we all in here?”

Willow looks down at her grimly. Her lack of witty retort sets a small panic going in Gal’s chest. Things are never so bad that Willow doesn’t have a dry comment to add.

“It’s a battle royale.” Willow says softly. None of the other women pay her any attention. “They’re going to make us fight to the death.”

Gal’s knees go weak. She looks up at the mass of women in front of her, big and small, hardened and soft, lifelong slaves or recent transplants from the wasteland. She’s a good fighter nowadays, one of the best in one-on-one combat, but she has no practice facing multiple fighters. Five, four, maybe even just three of them will be enough to take her out.

“I’ve got your back.” Willow says to her, surprisingly gently. A mottled hand grips her shoulder warmly, matching the quirk at the side of Willow’s mouth. “We’ll get through this.”

Gal only has time to flash a weak smile back and squeeze her hand back before the grate screeches open.

The women flood in like startled cattle, trying to spread out and find their own space to occupy before someone grabs them and the fighting starts. Willow gestures her back, so they’re the last two to leave the holding area and don’t get caught in the rush. One woman is already limping, her ankle swollen and red like she’d twisted it.

“Keep the wall to your back and don’t be afraid to create some distance if too many gang up on you.” Willow shouts to her. All around, fights start. Gal notices with horror that another group is flooding in from the other side. Bare-chested men trickle in to the arena and start engaging the women and each other with roars and curses.

Gal has fought several men already in her time here. The first hard lesson she’d learned was that in the heat of battle, they didn’t give a shit whether their opponent was male or female. They were out to survive too.

Carefully, she and Willow make their way along the sloping wall. The stands are the fullest they’ve ever been for this fight, so much that dozens of people are just standing in the free spaces, cheering and betting. Gal nearly trips over a corpse.

A skinny dark-skinned man snarls at her and comes rushing in, fists flailing blindly. He must be a new addition; it takes little skill to counter his clumsy bullrush. Gal snaps his neck without a further thought and turns back to look for more danger.

A kick comes flying out of nowhere and takes her right in the diaphragm. Letting out a grunt, Gal stumbles backwards and goes head over heels with the power of the kick. She springs to her feet only to find Willow already on her new opponent. The blows are flying hard and fast, but Willow gets the upper hand and the woman stumbles back to find easier pickings. 

The fight feels like it goes on forever. There are no radiation barrels, but they don’t need them. It’s like the slaves are in a furious rage, fighting for their right to survive and not holding back. Gal feels like she’s about to drop from exhaustion, but each new opponent sends equal parts of terror and adrenaline flooding through her veins. She watches Willow’s back, and Willow watches hers, and they get through with only a few minor injuries.

“When are they going to shut it off?” she calls to her partner. The arena is littered with bodies, and only ten or so are still fighting. It’s a flat out massacre, like a battlefield from an old history holotape.

“Soon, they don’t want to kill all of us I’d think -” Willow bites off her sentence in a curse as a man comes flying at her. Another slips in and faces Gal, pushing her back the opposite way. Gal is forced back until she and Willow are nearly on opposite sides of the arena from each other. The woman is putting every ounce of herself into her fighting, and it’s all Gal can do to keep up.

Until a deafening roar shakes the ground. The sound causes Gal’s opponent to stumble. Gal takes the opening, snaps out a kick towards the side of her knee, and hears the snap of the joint. The woman goes down and doesn’t get back up.

It’s just as well, because they now all have a bigger problem to worry about. From the men’s holding area, a beast the likes of which Gal has never seen comes lumbering out. It has milky eyes set above a short snort and gnashing teeth. The hulking shoulders slope down to smaller, but similarly powerful hindquarters, all covered in gaping sores and cuts and a few patches of bristly hair. When it swipes at the closest fighter, Gal sees that its paws are the size of saucepans.

“Yao guai,” someone whispers in fear next to her. The monster takes down its chosen victim and looks around for the next target.

There’s a glint from above. Around the arena, knives thunk into the dirt, followed by a few pieces of rebar and a pipe. Gal starts towards one, but the remaining fighters have already snatched them up. The crowd is going wild above them. Gal spares a minute of pure, unadulterated hate for their callousness, and then focuses back on the task at hand.

The yao guai charges another fighter. It’s surprisingly fast for its size. The man manages to stumble out of the way and scampers across the arena, leaving only one target for the monster to focus on.

Willow, unarmed and panting from the battle royale, sneers at the yao guai and motions it over. It begins its lumbering path towards where she’s crowded up against the wall. 

Gal doesn’t even think about it. Muttering a curse, she takes off across the arena as fast as her feet can carry her. When she reaches the lumbering beast, she takes a flying leap and scrabbles up onto its back. Her hands slip on the blood covering its skin as she searches for a hold.

The yao guai stops in confusion and then jerks side to side, attempting to dislodge its passenger. Gal just barely holds on, but she slides forward so that she’s gripping the creature’s neck. It’s a dangerous position that leaves her center of balance falling forward over her head, threatening to drag her down right in front of the yao guai’s mouth.

“Hey, ugly, over here!” comes a sharp bark. The yao guai stops its bucking and looks up at Willow. It can’t seem to decide whether to go after the new threat or continue trying to dislodge Gal. When it looks like it might pick Willow, Gal reaches down and twists a bare ear as hard as she can. The creature shrieks in pain.

Before she can react, a massive paw wraps around and catches her across the shoulder. The claws, whole inches long and sharp as kitchen knives, dig into the meat of the back of her shoulder. Gal screams. The force of the blow dislodges her and she hits the dirt hard on her injured shoulder. Her vision goes white and her ears roar as she struggles to hold on to consciousness.

She expects the killing blow anytime, but it doesn’t come. When her vision finally clears, she sees that another figure has taken the yao guai’s attention.

Charon ducks a blow from the massive creature and darts in with the piece of rebar in his hand. He stabs towards the yao guai’s shoulder and leaves a bloody rivet in its pitted flesh. The creature snarls and charges him. Charon leaps out of the way, clearing hundreds of pounds of enraged creature by mere inches. Gal realizes she’s vulnerable laying out on the ground as she is and stumbles to her feet, searching the area for threats. Most of the other slaves are down or dead, and the rest aren’t coming anywhere near their side of the arena. Gal sees the rope and pulley systems above swinging barrels towards that side, ready to herd them into the fight via radiation.

She spots a combat knife curled in the lifeless grip of a man a dozen feet away and stumbles toward it. Her shoulder throbs too much to move, so she has to use her other hand to pry the knife out. Her one knife doesn’t look so useful against a creature that has five similar ones on each giant paw.

Charon has gotten in a few more blows on the yao guai, and Willow is backing him up. The yao guai looks back and forth at its attackers, unsure what to do. When Willow slashes it across a broad hindquarter, it lets out an ear-shattering roar. Charon darts in as soon as it turns to slash at her and reaches for its throat. He nearly succeeds, but the yao guai swivels just in time and flings out a paw, catching Charon across the chest. He lands hard several feet away, the beast lumbering towards him for a follow-up blow.

Panting, Gal stumbles forward and goes to finish what Charon had started. The yao guai is focused on its prey and doesn’t see her staggering up behind it. With as much force as she can muster, Gal stabs the knife into the yao guai’s throat and twists it.

The spray of blood that comes out is even more violent than she would have expected. It paints her face and the whole ground in front of her, catching Charon’s trousers and Willow’s leg as well. The yao guai shudders, eyes going dull, and slumps to the ground.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to do some more editing on this, but I'm on vacation and adding this chapter from my phone. Sorry!

The slave quarters in the days after the battle royale are quiet and solemn. Despite people trying their best to stay solitary, everyone is mourning at least one friend that is now gone. Nobody blames the other slaves for killing a friend this time; there’s no point in blaming another victim when it’s clear their fate is in the hands of a cruel and uncaring god. Gal had looked up and seen Ashur’s mildly interested face during the fight and felt the most intense surge of hate she’s ever experienced for anyone, ever. She spends some of her time each day carving his likeness into the dirt with her finger, and then smashing it with her fist.

The guards still watch Willow and Gal, and they have no idea why. Gal asks Rory, but he admits grudgingly that he’s not on good terms with the other slavers, and so isn’t in the gossip loop. Whatever it is, it puts permanent creases in Willow’s forehead and causes her to snap at Gal if she dares ask.

Everything feels so off that Gal finds herself alternating between cold fury and hopeless misery. Even in the first days after arriving here, she hadn’t felt this way. Guilt takes hold at some point, guilt that she’s still here while some of the other women - women with husbands, or children, or families that they supported, before their enslavement - had been murdered and then carelessly dragged away to be left in a pile somewhere.

It’s a full two weeks before the fights start up again. In that time, they get a huge influx of new slaves that take one look at the brooding, angry veterans and slink off to find their own corner. Gal wants to talk to them, comfort them maybe, but she doesn’t even know what she would say. None of the others bother.

A few days after the fights have started again, Juarez comes for Gal. He seems to be in a more cheerful mood with her, which scares Gal more than anything else. He’s exceedingly gentle as he guides her down the hallway and there’s a look of undisguised glee when he shoves her into the cell with Charon. It says, ‘I know something you don’t’.

Silence reigns after Juarez leaves. Charon gives her a half-hearted quirk of a smile, but his eyes are distant. There will be no fighting practice today, and honestly, she’s okay with that.

“...how’s your shoulder?” he asks after a few minutes.

Gal looks over at the raised, puffy scars running along the back of her shoulder and shrugs.

“Okay, I guess. They gave me a couple stimpacks. No muscle damage or anything.”

“Good.” is all Charon says back.

Silence again takes over.

All of the sudden, it’s very hard for Gal to breathe. A pit of anger starts boiling in her stomach, hot enough that she has to clench her teeth tightly to keep from screaming. She thinks about the march here, the fights she’s endured, the looks that the other slaves have given Willow. She thinks about the blood on Charon’s trousers the first time they’d met and the feel of Juarez’s hands on her. She thinks about the dead bodies scattered across the arena and the dead monster lying among them, its eyes blank and sad. It’s too much. Gal lets out a frustrated scream and turns to the wall, slamming her fist into it.

A hand wraps around her face and covers her mouth gently before she can really voice any of her anger. Gal screams wordlessly into the palm of Charon’s hand instead and turns her rage on him, slamming her fist back into his thigh and then into the broad plane of his chest. Charon weathers her storm without comment. She knows it has to hurt, but he doesn’t do anything to stop her but to keep her from screaming.

“Do what you need to do.” he says quietly. For some reason, that’s more enraging than anything else. She tries to push his hand away, attempts to stomp on the instep of his booted foot, even lashes out against the wall again. If it had been a coordinated attack, she might have taken him by surprise at least once, but she’s fighting wildly and sloppily, so it’s very easy for him to keep her in control. She realizes blindly that he’s trying both to keep her from bringing a guard in and keeping her from hurting herself. At the moment, she doesn’t thank him for it.

It takes Gal several long moments to calm down. The rage fades slowly and leaves her panting and exhausted, with the bloom of a headache behind her temples. Charon drops his hand from her mouth when he sees that she’s not going to scream anymore, but the other hand is left wrapped around her bicep.

“Feel better?” he asks. She can’t tell if it’s a joke or a serious question. But, to her surprise, she does actually feel better, so she nods. Then she lets her head tilt forward to rest on his chest.

“I hate this place.” she mutters, closing her eyes. “I wish I’d never left the Vault.”

Charon lets out a huff that shakes the surface her forehead is resting on.

“Don’t lie, smoothskin. You may hate this place, but you don’t wish you were still in the Vault.” he admonishes. She lets that sink in, roll around for a while, and admits grudgingly that he’s right.

“I wish my father had taken me with him.” she says instead. “I wish that the Capital Wasteland was a better place. I wish people didn’t use each other just because there’s nobody around to tell them it’s wrong.”

That is the honest truth. Embarrassingly, Gal feels a tear slide down her cheek. She doesn’t wipe it away, afraid to bring attention to it.

Charon lets her rest her head there silently for a while until she feels steady again. Underneath the dirt and stink that accompanies any slave, he smells good - spicy and coppery.

“...you scared the shit out of that guard last time I was here.” she says, just for a change of subject. She lifts her head and he takes it as a sign to let go and back away. “I thought he was going to keel over of fright.”

She and Charon take their unofficial position, seated with their backs against the wall, Gal cross-legged, Charon with an arm across his knee. He looks amused at the retelling.

“Has he been bothering you?” Charon asks.

She feels a little warm at the idea that he is concerned about her. Gal shakes her head and laughs a little.

“No, he just likes me for some reason, I think. But nothing weird. He just couldn’t deal with the idea of you pawing at me like a big, bad wolf, I guess.” she teases. Charon shoots her a look and then rolls his eyes.

“Any decent man would feel that way, with you putting on a sob show like you were.” he shoots back.

It hits her again how much she likes this man next to her, the same man who she’d looked at in terror just a few months ago.

“Sob show? That’s certainly not how I was feeling.” she says unthinkingly. When Charon turns to give her an unreadable look, she flushes. “Look, I’m only human, okay?” she snaps, somewhat defensively. His expression turns amused.

“Never met a woman that liked to be slammed into walls.”

Gal thinks about the feel of Charon’s warm hands wrapped around her thighs and the concrete digging into her back, and suppresses a shiver.

“Maybe you’ve been slamming the wrong women into walls, then.”

She doesn’t realize how blatantly she’s flirting until he slides to his feet and moves towards her. Dropping to one knee in front of her, he places one hand on the wall and leans forward until he’s looming over her.

Charon stops with his face just inches from hers and studies her expression. The tension in the air thickens exponentially.

“Huh.” he says thoughtfully. She grins and leans forward until their skin is nearly brushing.

“Gonna do it again?” she asks. The words are barely out of her mouth before Charon grabs her around the waist and drags her into his lap.

It takes her about five seconds to realize that as hot and bothered as their kiss last time had made her, it doesn’t hold a candle to how Charon is kissing her now. The way she’s splayed across his lap is awkward and uncomfortable, but she can’t bother to pay any attention to that when he’s nipping at her lips and rocking his hips into hers.

She immediately finds the hem of his shirt and slips her fingers under it so she can connect with warm skin. The feel is different from anything she’s ever experienced. The patches of exposed muscle expand and contract like warm fibrous wire under her fingers. Even the whole pieces of skin are textured strangely, but none of it is unpleasant. She wonders briefly if it hurts, his torn skin, but the muffled noises he makes into her mouth suggest that it doesn’t.

This time, when his hands slip under her top, she shivers in anticipation. Charon leaves her mouth to bite at her earlobe just as he pulls the fabric over her breasts. Her nipples are already pebbled in anticipation of being touched. Charon doesn’t disappoint.

“Off. Off.” she demands, pulling at his t-shirt. He complies and drags it up over his head. Underneath she finds a well-muscled chest leading into a ridged stomach, dusted with sparse red hair the same colour as the hair on his head. Charon goes back to palming a breast while she sucks a bruise into the crook of his neck and trails a hand down to his exposed hip.

A well-timed roll of her own hips makes him stop and groan into her shoulder. She does it again and squeaks when he retaliates by dragging his teeth along her collarbone.

“You better watch it.” he says tightly, hands settling on her hips so he can press her down into him. From the feel of it, she’s not the only one enjoying herself. Immensely.

“Take your pants off and I will.” she retorts.

The gleam he gets in his eye is the only warning she receives. Fluidly, like he’s practicing a fighting move on her, Charon flips them so Gal is trapped under him. He kicks off his boots, one by one, then fumbles with the catch on his trousers and shoves them down too. Naked from head to toe, he runs one hand up her leg and gently slides it under her skirt, pushing it up and out of the way.

“If we had more time, I’d take it a lot slower.” he says, almost as if he’s apologizing. Charon must miss the reaction his touch is eliciting, if he thinks he needs to apologize for anything. Plus, Gal can guess from the size of his pupils that he would have trouble with going slower even if she wanted him to. As it stands, she’d rather enjoy this time quickly than try to take it slow and get stopped right in the middle.

“We’ll take it slow another time.” she says, and slides her panties off before she can lose her nerve. Charon blinks and then turns back to the task at hand.

The first brush of his fingers over her labia makes her shiver in anticipation. He slides his hand over again more surely and then slips a finger through her folds. Gal bites back a moan at the feeling.

Once he’s convinced that she’s relaxed into his touch, he slides one large digit in and moves it back and forth gently. It’s almost criminal how good it feels, but even one finger feels big and she’s afraid that whatever he’s packing down there might be too much. She hasn’t even seen it yet, but it felt big when it was pressed up against her through Charon’s trousers.

Another finger joins the first, scissoring a little and then steadily more as she opens up. Charon complies when she pulls him down for another open-mouthed kiss. He swallows the sound she makes when he adds the third finger and pulls her bottom lip into his mouth to suck on. Gal whines a little when the fingers withdraw, leaving her feeling empty.

Something thicker replaces them to press against her opening. Charon lines himself up with one hand and gives her a long look before he presses slowly forward. Gal lets out a breath as he pushes in, trying to relax at the feeling of something much larger than fingers stretching her out. Charon’s hips jerk once before he pulls himself back together and continues pushing in slowly.

When he’s all the way in, he stops and looks at her again, gaze searching. In a surprisingly sweet gesture, he reaches up and sweeps a piece of hair out of her face to tuck behind her ear.

“You okay?” he asks gruffly. Gal mumbles an affirmative, closes her eyes and lets her head fall back to the ground, willing her muscles to stop clenching. It’s been a very long time since she’d done this. Once the discomfort fades a little bit, she nods and he starts moving.

Charon’s breaths come in pants and moans. One hand is fisted in the fabric bunched up around her chest. He looks like he’s putting every ounce of effort that he has into keeping the pace slow and steady for her. She appreciates it, because it’s a few long moments before the movement feels anything but uncomfortable.

Finally, Charon rolls his hips and touches something that makes her gasp. He looks her straight in the eyes and does it again, bringing another breathy exhale.

“A little faster, please.” she requests, and then changes her mind. “A lot faster, actually.”

He draws out slowly, like he’s contemplating it, and then snaps his hips forward so quickly that it makes Gal’s back arch in pleasure.

The pace turns quick and rough, Gal’s fingers scrambling for purchase on Charon’s skin as he’s thrusting into her. Warmth blooms deep in her abdomen, growing each time he sinks in and brushes her insides in just the right way. She reflects hazily that she’ll be sore tomorrow, but it’s hard to care. Charon shifts his weight to one side, never breaking stride, and reaches up to drag a rough thumb over one of her nipples. The pleasure feels electric. It tingles up and down her body to mix with the spreading warmth. It almost feels like too much.

The feeling heightens just a little more, wavers, and then breaks. Gal’s eyes flutter closed as the pleasure rushes through her body and makes her shake. She has to clench one hand around Charon’s arm just to stay grounded. The feeling draws on for several more seconds before it fades away, leaving her limp and panting.

Charon falters at the clench of her muscles around him, but picks the pace back up doggedly and keeps going. It’s several more seconds before he pushes in as far as he can go and buries his face in the crook of her neck. The spasms that come send aftershocks of pleasure racing through her; she clenches involuntarily and Charon bites out a muffled curse into her skin.

Finally, the pleasure subsides completely, and Charon withdraws gently and then rolls over so he can collapse on the floor next to her. She feels sweaty and wet and completely satisfied. Judging from his lidded eyes, he feels the same.

“Are they sure they can’t get me over here more than once a week?” she asks playfully, when the silence stretches out too long. Charon looks at her, snorts, and then sits up. He drops her panties on her chest and looks away so he can start tracking down his own clothes. Gal slides the underwear on and pulls the rest back into place as Charon buttons his trousers. She doesn’t miss the way one of his hands settles on the hickey she’d given him and presses lightly.

“Actually, I had something to tell you. Stay out of trouble, because I think -”

He cuts off when the door to the room clangs open. Rory stalks in, takes one look at her debauched self and Charon’s shirtlessness, and his eyes go cold. Whatever Charon wants to say, he’s clearly not going to say it with a guard in here. Instead, he faces Rory down as he slowly pulls his boots on and shrugs on his shirt. Gal sees Rory’s hand twitch, like he wants to do something about it, but the guard takes a deep breath and motions her over so he can escort her out of the cell.

“Stay out of trouble, Gal.” Charon calls from behind. Rory’s hand tightens on her arm to the point of pain before he realizes what he’s doing and relaxes it.

They stop by the medical room for a stimpack. Gal tries to hide her disappointment as the reminders of her and Charon’s time together fade. The lack of soreness is a boon for a fighter, but it might have been nice to lay down in the slave quarters at night and have something pleasant to think about.

“Rory.” she says, taking a chance and laying her hand on his arm while they’re stopped and alone in the medical room. He pauses and looks at her. “You don’t need to be so upset on my behalf. It’s consensual.”

The word doesn’t seem to compute with him.

“They put you in a room with their best fighting dog like you’re a bitch in heat, Gal. There’s not much that’s consensual about that.” he says icily. Then he sighs, and the anger drains out of his face.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… you remind me of someone, is all.” His eyes go thoughtful, like he’s seeing someone else standing there, instead of her. “You don’t deserve this. Nobody does.”

Strange outlook, coming from a slaver, she thinks. But his words feel surprisingly genuine to her. Gal gives him a smile and gets a small one in return.

“You’re awfully sentimental for a guard.”

“Tell me about it.” he grumbles.They turn back to the door and head for the slave quarters.

\--

Willow takes one look at her and her fading bruises and laughs her ass off. Gal just rolls her eyes as she takes her spot on the window.

“Can you really tell?” she asks. Willow nods, slapping at her leg and cackling like a witch.

“I was wondering when it was going to happen.” she admits, once the laughing dies down. “You get… _perky_ when they take you up there.” Gal scowls, but Willow is unmoved by it.

“So you’re not upset or anything, then?” she asks. The ghoulette shakes her head.

“What’s there to be upset about? Everybody needs to have some fun once in a while. You want to sleep with his cranky ass, more power to you. Just keep the details to yourself.”

Gal grins and leans in closer.

“Sure you don’t want to hear about it? I can tell you all about his big -"

Willow cuts that comment off by pushing her off the windowsill.

\--

The other shoe drops a few days later. They’ve just finished a rough session of sparring when someone clatters on the bars in the main room.

“Blondie,” Juarez sings, “Get the fuck out here!”

Wiping the sweat out of her eyes, Gal waves to Willow and heads for the main room. It’s not a good idea to keep any slaver, especially Juarez, waiting.

When she strides in, he’s draped across the front of the bars, grinning at her in a way that makes her uneasy. Gal doesn’t know if she’ll ever see a dark, handsome face like his again without being physically repulsed by it.

“Hope you’ve said your goodbyes, Blondie.” he says, snickering, as she comes up to be led out. “You’re going to die today.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Juarez?” she says coolly, facing him through the door. He unlocks it with a flourish and buries his free hand in her hair to drag her out. He hadn’t done that since Charon had nearly killed him weeks before.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” he says nastily, steering her towards the doorway. “It’s too bad I found out so late, or I would have taken advantage of it and pulled you out a little early.”

She can’t see his expression, but she can imagine the leer on it. She tries to stamp down on the nervousness that’s making her stomach churn and focus on breathing steadily instead. Reactions like that aren’t going to help her get through whatever it is she needs to get through.

Juarez leads her down the familiar path to the arena. It’s to be a fight, then. She doesn’t know what fighter is so good that Juarez believes hands-down she’ll lose. There’s only a couple she would say that about nowadays.

That thought makes the churning in her stomach worse.

“Your boyfriend’s going to be upset after this is all over. He’ll have to find himself a new playtoy, after he spent all that time getting you broke in. What a pity.”

The shoves that he gives her nearly sends her head-first into the grate on the other side of the holding area. She manages to twist and roll so she takes it on her side instead, but it’s hard enough that it knocks the wind out of her. Juarez, instead of leaving, stands back from the bars and lifts his rifle to his shoulder.

_Is he going to shoot me?_ She thinks. What point would that have?

“Maybe I’ll make you dance a little bit before you go out there.” he says, sighting down the barrel. “Ashur probably wouldn’t care about a little hole in your leg.” he mimics pulling the trigger and laughs when she darts to the side.

Gal wants nothing more than to take his rifle and beat him senseless with it, but she’s caught in the holding area like a fish in a barrel.

Before he can say anything else, the grate behind her screeches upwards. Gal sucks in a breath and darts under it. Two knives are already lying in the dirt on either side of the arena, in reach of the two fighters from their starting points. Gal picks hers up, tests the weight and the balance, and turns to eye the other opening cautiously.

The crowd is bigger than usual for her today, and Ashur is in his spot as well, which is not unheard of but a bit unusual. A figure emerges from the shadows of the opening. Whoever it is, they’re not in any hurry to make it to the fight.

The crowd goes wild when the sunlight finally reveals who she is. Across from Gal, Willow bends and picks up the knife, then turns to face her. The sunlight glints off the knife in Willow’s hand.

Gal blinks, trying to pretend it’s an illusion, but there Willow stands, facing her down in the arena as her opponent. The barrels drop and the radiation washes over her and twists the knot in her stomach even more.

Gal can’t fight _Willow_. Willow had taught her everything she knows. How to throw a punch properly, how to slap the ground on a fall or roll to take the impact out, how to use feints to her advantage and what the best techniques were for someone bigger or stronger. Willow had spend whole afternoons bullshitting with her, and patching her up when she was hurt, and listening to every teary rant that she went on about what her life was like before The Pitt.

Gal sinks into a fighting crouch, and all she can think about is how it looks just like Willow’s, because Willow _taught it to her_.

Even as her brain objects, Gal’s body moves. Fighting is second nature to her now; she doesn’t need to think for her legs to move her forward, or for her arms to block and attack.

They stop in the middle of the arena and face each other, ignoring the way the crowd is screaming at them to draw blood.

“Willow -” Gal says, and is mortified to find that her voice is choked with tears. Her vision gets a bit blurry, and she wipes the tears away quickly, brusquely.

The ghoulette has always been good at hiding her emotions, but Gal has been in her presence nearly 24 hours a day for half a year. She can see the pain in Willow’s eyes, even as the rest of her stays prepared for a fight. No matter how much she’d bitched about teaching, or that she didn’t like other people, or that she preferred to be on her own, thank you very much, Willow doesn’t want to do this any more than Gal does.

“Fucking do something already, you cunts!” somebody yells from the stands. Gal is starting to get dizzy from the radiation.

“Willow, I -” she says, faltering. She wants to speak, to say anything, but she just can’t.

Willow looks at her, looks at the knife - and sighs. Straightening up, she drops the knife into the dust.

“Get it over with, smoothskin. No use sitting around making yourself sick when you don’t have to.” Willow says. She sounds worn out.

Gal freezes in place. The look on the ghoulette’s face twists in annoyance.

“Did you not hear me? Get over it and kill me, so we can be done with this. You’re on a time limit, here.”

Gal shakes her head numbly. She’s still clutching the knife, but only because her fingers are locked around it and won’t come loose. If Willow had attacked her, made her defend herself, maybe she could have fought back, but this way - She can’t kill Willow in cold blood. She can’t do it.

A sudden hush settles over the crowd. Gal looks up to see someone, another slaver perhaps, whispering into Ashur’s ear. The amount of radiation in her system is starting to make it difficult to stand straight; she has to drop from her fighting stance just to keep her balance, and even that is shaky. Ashur makes a gesture. Dimly, she hears a clanging behind her, but she can’t figure out what it is.

Someone appears in her peripheral vision. Gal twists, trying to lash out, but she’s too dizzy and the blow doesn’t connect. Instead, the world tilts sideways and Willow’s face comes into view just before everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Sex, violence, all the usual.


	6. Chapter 6

Gal comes to in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room with shabby, unfamiliar grey walls. Confused, she tries to sit up far too fast and moans when the world starts spinning. Someone has placed a bucket just on the side of the bed. Gal vomits into it, pauses, and then starts again. When her stomach is empty, lays her head back down on the mattress and surveys her situation weakly.

“Gal? You up?” a familiar voice calls. Gal looks up at the cracked door just in time to see Willow nudge it open. She takes one look at Gal lying on the mattress over the bucket and snorts.

“Rough day?” Willow asks rhetorically. Ignoring her jibe, Gal closes her eyes and lets out a groan. She can hear Willow chuckling at her misfortune.

“You remember what happened?” the ghoulette asks. Gal nods. “You passed out from severe radiation poisoning. We had to give you so much radaway to fix the damage that I’m pretty sure you’d bleed it if I cut you right now. That’s why you’re so nauseated.”

“Whose bed am I in?” she mumbles, peeking out at Willow. Willow grins and pats her on the shoulder.

“Your own, smoothskin.”

Gal squints at her, confused. “My...own…?”

Gal notes finally that Willow is wearing an outfit she’s never seen before - a faded grey v-neck, a leather jacket, and dark pants. The halter top and tattered skirt are nowhere to be seen. Gal is still wearing her slave outfit, but the lock that usually hangs on the front of the top is gone.

“They wanted the hardware back before we left, and I figured you might want to change into something more comfortable at some point.” Willow gives her a pointed look. “Get it yet? Charon won his freedom. And somehow, the bastard convinced Ashur to let _both_ of us go. We’re members of the Pitt’s working class now.”

It takes that information a little while to make sense in her head. When it does finally click, Gal gapes at her, speechless. For all that she’d only been a slave six months, somehow it had started to feel like it would always be that way. The idea of being her own person again is strangely incomprehensible. The information feels a little overwhelming; it makes her head hurt and her stomach flip even more.

Willow takes pity on her and helps her up into a sitting position. “You want to go take a shower and get into some clean clothes? No offense, tourist, but you stink.”

A _shower._ That’s enough to push any confused thoughts from her mind. Gal grins woozily and nearly trips over her feet in her haste to get going. She hasn’t had a shower since the Vault. She’s going to spend _hours_ in it.

Willow leads her to a small bathroom just across the hall from her room. It’s small and rusty, and it looks like the shower has been repaired several times, but when Willow turns a knob, hot water streams out of the showerhead and starts steaming up the mirror. She goes to leave, but Gal grabs her wrist before she can disappear.

“Willow.” she says hesitantly. “In the fight back there… you would have let me… well. And - “

The words are discombobulated and the meaning is near unintelligible, but Willow gets it. She grins at Gal again and squeezes her hand tightly. “Seems like you were out to do the same. I should have known you’d be too stubborn to let an old ghoul die in peace. Let me go get you some clothes, smoothskin.”

Gal lets her exit the bathroom and shut the door behind her, and does not, _does not,_ cry.

It feels significant to unfasten her clothes and let them drop to the floor. When she finally slips into the shower, it’s so hot she nearly scalds herself. But it feels good to scrub herself with the bar of soap until her skin pinks up. All this time, she’d been thinking that life in the Pitt had given her a tan, and in reality it was just a layer of grime over her skin.

She scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until finally, she’s too tender to stay under the hot water anymore. Willow has slipped in at some point and left a pile of clothes on top of the toilet, but Gal ignores them for a moment to look at herself in the cracked, steamy mirror.

The person on the other side is nearly unrecognizable. Her body is thin, much thinner, and corded with muscle. The weight loss has drawn lines into her cheeks that were never there before, leaving protruding cheekbones behind. A bloom of purple stains the skin under her eyes from her continuous inadequate sleep. Her hair is long and tangled and the bangs grown out and indistinguishable from the rest of the mass. The only things that look even remotely the same are her eyes. The rest of her may look like it’s been through the ringer, but her eyes still gleam.

She looks like a product of the wasteland - lean and wild.

Gal abandons the mirror and dresses so she can explore their new home. In terms of other homes she’s seen in the Wasteland, it’s not much, but it’s far bigger than any living spaces in the Vault and it’s not filled with dozens of other women and stinking straw mattresses. Three bedrooms lead off from the hallway that also contains the bathroom. At the other end, there’s a small living area and a kitchen. Charon is seated on the couch polishing a combat shotgun, one booted foot kicked up on the coffee table. He eyes her as she hovers in the doorway uncertainly.

“How are you feeling?” he asks gruffly. She takes that as an invitation and settles on the other side of the couch with her feet curled up beneath her.

“Fine. Better.” she says honestly, though her head still feels a little woozy. “How did all of this happen?” she waves at the apartment to clarify her meaning. Charon turns back to his cleaning as he explains.

“Ashur was impressed by the yao guai and figured it was time he let me out. I was going to tell you before the guard came and got me.” He makes no mention of the reason he ran out of time to tell her in the first place. “I requested both of you but by the time the word got passed up the chain, you were already in the arena. Ashur had to stop the fight.”

“What he means,” Willow adds, appearing from inside the kitchen, “is that he threatened to eviscerate somebody if he didn’t tell Ashur to stop the fight right away. Ashur could have had his throat slit, and probably would if it were anyone else making those demands, but he thinks Charon’s ‘drive’ is ‘commendable’. I’m going out, there’s no damn food to eat. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

With that, Willow sashays out and leaves her and Charon alone.

“Thank you.” Gal says quietly. “You didn’t have to save me.”

Charon grunts, and doesn’t reply.

“I thought you and Willow had to leave? To get back to Underworld?” she asks hesitantly. Charon snaps a piece off of his shotgun and takes a brush to it.

“We’re going to, but you can’t just leave the Pitt, especially not as a former slave. They don’t want you getting out to expose their secrets, or coming back with reinforcements to try to take over. We’ll get out eventually, but it’ll take some time to form a plan.” he pauses, and then goes back to scrubbing viciously. “We’ll get you out too, if you want it.”

The statement makes hope bloom in her chest. It curls back up and falls away just as viciously. As awful as the Pitt is, it’s been her home for six months. Everything she knows of the Capital Wasteland has come from Willow’s stories, not from anything that will actually help her survive out there. Gal may be a better fighter now, but there’s more to survival than just fighting.

“I…. don’t even know where I could go.” she admits. “I left to find my father, but by now there won’t even be a trail to follow. I have no idea where to start.” It’s a long shot, but she decides to go for it. “Could I go with you? To Underworld? Just until I figure out my next move.”

The clank that the combat shotgun makes as Charon slaps it down on the coffee table is both loud and pointed. He gives her an expressionless look.

“No.” and he disappears into the kitchen, signaling the end of the discussion.

She stares after him, shocked. Charon is prone to directness and he isn’t very eloquent, but he’s never blatantly refused to help her before.   
  
There’s something about Underworld that nobody is telling her. Is it because she’s not a ghoul? It can’t be - Willow said they have occasional non-ghoul visitors. Whatever it is that makes Charon shy away from the subject, nobody’s willing to talk.  

Willow finds her in her room later, curled up on the bed and staring at the wall blankly. Gal tries to produce a smile, but it’s a weak one. Willow, barefooted and smelling of cigarettes, gestures her into the kitchen and towards the rickety old table standing in the corner. Two plates of food sit on the table. Gal gives Willow a wan smile and picks up her fork to pick at it.

“Something happen while I was gone?” Willow asks casually. Gal shrugs.

“Just talking about what we’re going to do after we get out of here. I asked Charon to come to Underworld when you guys leave, and… he didn’t like that idea.”

Willow’s mouth twists in annoyance, and then she sighs. She seems as uninterested in eating as Gal is; the food on her plate goes untouched, though Willow grips a fork in one hand.

“It’s not you, alright? Charon’s life is… complicated. Besides, Underworld wouldn’t be a very good place for you anyway. Smoothskins come and go sometimes, but they don’t stay permanently. You’d be treated like a pariah.”

As much as Gal wants to argue, it doesn’t seem like it’ll do any good.  Instead, she decides to change the subject.

“How did you end up in Underworld? Were you born there?”

Willow rolls her eyes. “Hardly. Ghouls are sterile, so you won’t find any little ones in Underworld. I was born into a caravan family, about 80 years ago. We would stop at all the major settlements in the Capital Wasteland and trade goods. My family was murdered one night out in the Wasteland. I was the only one who survived. Charon found me and brought me back to Underworld.”

Gal’s eyes widen as she turns to look at Willow. “ _Murdered?_ ”

Willow gives her a look, as if to ask, ‘Is that really surprising?’. Aloud, she says, “Yeah. My husband and two kids. If I hadn’t been out hunting, I guess I would have been killed too. Whoever it was that did it, they were gone by the time I got back. No trace of ‘em.”

“I’m… so sorry.” Gal says, dropping her head to stare into her instamash. “That’s really terrible.”

Willow doesn’t reply. The sensitive topic seems to make her really uncomfortable, so Gal moves on. “How did Charon find you?”

The ghoulette smiles humourlessly at the molerat on her plate. “I tried to track down the raiders that killed my family, but like I said - no trace. It was a crazy idea, but I went kind of crazy, to be honest. I must have been out searching for several days, no sleep, no food, just enough water to keep me going. When I finally realized I couldn’t avenge them, I guess… I decided to join them.” Willow’s mouth twists. “There was a nuclear bomb crater left over from the Great War nearby. I stumbled in as far as I could go and laid down to die. It wasn’t ‘til I woke up in Underworld that I realized it didn’t work. I gave Charon a lot of shit for saving me.”

_I’m glad he did._ Gal thinks. It’s not the right thing to say, in this context, so she keeps quiet.

“Hey,” Willow says, breaking her from her introspection, “I need to run some errands and Charon is out. You going to be okay on your own for the evening?”

_I don’t know,_ is what Gal wants to say, but that feels selfish. She’s free now, with a bed to sleep in and food to eat in front of her, and someone else got that for her. She should be over the moon right now.

But she’s… not. Why that is is anybody’s guess.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay. I’ll read a book or something.” she says, glancing at the bookshelf standing in the corner. It looks like it hasn’t been touched in _years._

Willow snorts, disbelieving, but accepts the answer and pushes up from the table. As she passes, she ruffles Gal’s hair affectionately and snatches her jacket from the kitchen counter.

“Eat your dinner.” And then she’s gone.

Gal looks down at the food pushed around her plate and pushes it around some more.

The little apartment feels cold and lonely without anyone in it. Gal gives up on the plate of food and scrapes the rest off into an old banged-up trash can before setting the plate in the sink. She pokes around the apartment some more and notices that she’s left her old slave clothes on the floor in the bathroom.

When she picks up the torn, tattered skirt, a folded piece of paper flutters to the floor. Frowning, Gal picks it up. The spiky, near illegible handwriting on the inside is unfamiliar.

_Gal -_

_I’m glad you’re free now. If you have time, I need your help with something. No funny stuff. You can find me at Vertigo Bar after six any evening._

__\- R_ _

Rory, huh? Well, she had been looking for something to do. She’s not entirely sure what a newly-freed slave could do for a slaver, but she’s not concerned about any ‘funny stuff’ coming from him. He seems honest to her, honest in a way that Charon and Willow are.

She checks the clock. 6:30. A perfect time to meet. That just means she has to leave the apartment, all by herself, in a completely unfamiliar place, and navigate the streets to somewhere she’s never been before.

She can do that. She can.

Gal yanks an old black jacket out of her room, scribbles a note out to Charon and Willow that she leaves on the kitchen counter, and slips out the front door. Then she turns to inspect her new town.

If she’d been expecting something fancy, she would have been sorely disappointed. The door to their apartment leads to a cobbled-together walkway that appears to be three stories or so above the ground. The walkway under her feet is made of rusted pieces of sheet metal, wooden planks, and metal bars that are mostly sturdy-looking. Mostly. Similar doors line the walkway to either side, presumably to more apartments.

She picks a direction and sets out.

Below her feet, people mill back and forth down the dirt ‘street’ - men and women in heavy armour, regular joes wearing faded flannels and jeans, the occasional slave recognizable by their minimal clothing. Gal keeps her head down and doesn’t talk to any of them.

She finds a stairway down to the lower levels. On the second floor, just behind the stairs to the ground level, a homemade wooden sign hangs with the words ‘Sal’s Souvenirs’ scrawled on it in black marker. The whole front of the shop is open, with a set of metal grates pushed to each side that probably block the shop off after hours. Gal approaches the pot-bellied man behind the counter cautiously.

The man is probably in his fifties, with a salt-and-pepper mohawk and festering, red skin. He sees Gal and straightens up, leering visibly.

“Heyya doll, what’s cooking?” he asks as she stops well away from the counter, out of arm’s reach. She doesn’t want him touching her.

“I’m looking for Vertigo Bar. Can you give me directions?” she asks flatly. He grins again, flashing yellow, rotted teeth.

“And what will you give me if I do?” he asks slyly, eyeing the loose long-sleeved shirt she’s wearing. It’s not even remotely revealing.

It’s almost habit to step forward and wrap her hands around one of his. He lets out an undignified grunt of pain when she forces his finger back and scrabbles at her grip, but she doesn’t let go.

“An unbroken finger. Good trade, right?” she asks, no humour in her voice. The man glares at her weakly. She bends the finger back a little more.

“Okay, okay, you little bitch!” he exclaims. She lets go and steps back, watching warily as he nurses his sore finger.

“It’s on top of that building over there. Now get the fuck out of my shop.” he growls, pointing out the open front of the shop to a building nearby. She does just that without a further thought for him.

It occurs to her, as she’s ambling down the walkways, that she’s changed a lot since she stepped out of the Vault. Her nervousness about being out on her own has faded and she feels confident that she can take care of herself. She’s dressed distinctly less protectively than most of the other people on the street, who are largely armed to the teeth and decked out in armour, but nobody bothers her.

After a bit of fumbling, Gal finds the walkway that leads up to the top of the building housing Vertigo bar. The place is open to the elements on the top and two sides, with the bar itself up against a farther and taller side. It’s not much of a place; there’s a few shelves full of liquor and mixers, a fridge and a stove, a pool table at one end, and some scattered tables. Some lights are strung up to hold back the oppressive dark that hangs over the area. For all that it looks pitiful, it’s fit to bursting with people and all the tables are taken. A woman with a half-shaved head glances up from one of the tables, looks her slight frame up and down, and scowls at her.

Gal ignores the woman and scans, searching for the familiar head of blond hair. She finds Rory seated alone in the far corner, cradling a glass of something dark in one hand that he doesn’t look to actually be drinking. Suddenly hesitant, Gal crosses to him and pulls a chair out.

“Gal,” he says hastily, and stands. He reaches one hand out, as if he’s going to shake her hand or clap her on the shoulder or something, but thinks better of it and settles back down into his chair. He does give her a wide, relieved smile.

“I’m glad you came. I was worried you wouldn’t.” he says, still giving her that smile. Gal cuts it off with a hard glare. Good intentions or not, the sight of him holds a lot of memories that aren’t really that pleasant, the least of which is a reminder that she was fighting for her life against Willow less than 24 hours ago because of men and women like him.

“What’s all this about, Rory? I’m not exactly ‘your charge’ anymore. So what do you want?”

That certainly makes his ears droop. He coughs into a fist awkwardly and gets down to business, voice low as if he doesn’t want to be overheard.

“I know this is weird, but just hear me out and it will make sense, I promise. I’m not really a slaver.”

Gal blinks in surprise and eyes his armour. “You certainly could have fooled me.”

Rory has the decency to look ashamed. “Well, I mean, I guess in some ways I am. But that’s not why I’m here. In the Pitt, I mean. I came here because… because my little brother was taken.” he stops for a minute and lets that sink in.

“Connor was kidnapped from my house in the Wasteland and taken to Paradise Falls. When I tracked him there, they told me he’d been bought and transferred to the Pitt. I came here and signed on as a slaver because I thought it would make it easier to look for him, but then they signed me on to work with the fighters and now it looks real suspicious if I’m seen talking to any of the other slaves.”

He sighs and stares into the contents of his glass. Gal realizes suddenly how _tired_ he looks, with the giant rings under his eyes and the unhealthy pallor to his skin. He looks nearly as bad as she does. Working as a slaver isn’t being good to him, that’s for sure.

“I just…” he begins, fingers tight on the glass, “I just… miss my brother. It’s my fault he’s gone. I have to get him back.”

Rory looks up and gives her a wan smile. “You’re free now. I don’t know what your plans are, but…you can get into places that I can’t, talk to people that won’t give me the time of day. Will you help?”

Reaching back towards his waist, Rory pulls a little bag from his belt and tosses it onto the table. It jingles and clinks when it hits.

“I don’t make much, but what I have is yours, if you’ll help.”

Gal looks at the little bag on the table and Rory’s fingers, clenched around the glass. Reaching one hand out, she settles her thin hand on top of his broad, calloused one, and squeezes.

“Of course I’ll help. And I don’t want your money. Keep it in case you need it.” she says. Rory looks at the hand on top of his and then sweeps his gaze up to meet hers, a wide smile on his face. The grin very nearly changes his whole face, it’s so bright. She can’t help but smile back.

“Thank you. I - thank you.” he says, gratitude evident in his voice. “I don’t really have any leads, but I know a few places you might start looking. I’ve written them down.” Rory pulls a folded pack of paper from his pocket and slides it across the table. “And a picture. It’s a pretty good likeness, I think. People say he looks a lot like me, just younger. He’s almost ten.”

Gal unfolds the papers, sets the list of places aside, and looks at the picture. It’s a pencil portrait and very, very good. There’s no colour, but it appears that Connor has Rory’s light hair and eyes in a thinner face. His ears stick out like he hasn’t quite grown into them yet. The look on his face is mischievous, as if he’s pulled a prank and he’s just now reaping the results.

Gal looks up to see Rory studying the drawing too. His lips are pressed into a thin line. When he catches her looking, he swallows hard and attempts another smile. This one is distinctly wavery around the edges.

“We’ll find him, Rory. If he’s here, we’ll find him.” Gal finds herself promising. She folds the picture back up so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore and tucks it and the list of locations into a pocket. Rory nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know, I just… well.” he coughs and takes a sip of his drink. “Listen, uh… I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you could keep this to yourself, I’d be grateful. With Charon being Ashur’s right-hand man and all…”

Well, Charon certainly hadn’t mentioned _that_ this morning, but Gal’s not really surprised. That had probably been the whole point of Ashur freeing him, after all. She considers telling Rory about the lie they’ve been enacting, but decides against it. She’d promised not to, for one thing, and for another, while she trusts Rory herself, she’s not sure she trusts him to pass by an opportunity that might buy his brother’s freedom. An opportunity like, say, information about a traitor in Ashur’s network. One that Rory thinks is a scumbag that’s been forcing himself on women.

Yes, better not to say.

“I won’t tell. But it’s getting late, so I should get back. If I find anything, how should I let you know?” she asks.

“My address is in there. I live alone, so you can stop by anytime. Or I’m here most nights.” he stops and gives her a searching look. “Thanks, Gal.”

She squeezes his hand one more time, promises to get back to him soon, and heads back home.

For a town full of slavers, looking to get into trouble, 8 o’clock is apparently time to be out on the town. The streets and walkways are full of swaggering bodies in armour. Men and women  in bloodstained clothes stumble from bars, eyes red from jet overdose. She hears yelling, fighting, even gunshots. Nobody seems to care. A woman runs straight into her and tries to get angry about it, but she’s so drunk she just falls to the ground and fails to get back up.

It suddenly seems a little foolish to go out by herself, completely unarmed. Next time, she’ll definitely bring at least a pistol or something. She was a pretty good shot with her BB gun, and she’d hit a few marks on her way out of the vault with the handgun Amata had given her.

God, that seems like such a long time ago.

Gal makes it back to the apartment with no mishaps. Sighing in relief, she tries the handle, only to find it locked. The door is yanked open almost immediately after she knocks. Charon stands in front of her, his eyes cold. Moving out of the way, he motions her in with a jerk of her head. She acquiesces, confused by his manner, and winces as the door slams shut behind her.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he hisses, once the bolt is thrown. His face is tight with anger.

“Out.” Gal says defensively, realizing what this is about and starting to get a little angry “I left a note on the counter, since both you and Willow were _out yourselves_.”

“And _what_ exactly made you think it was a good idea to go out by yourself in a place you’ve never been, with no weapons?” he counters, crossing his arms.  The curve of his bicep is startlingly visible under the sleeves of his tight, faded undershirt. Gal lets out a disbelieving huff.

“And what, _exactly,_ gives you the right to keep me here without your big, bad presence around to protect me, huh? I’m not a little girl, Charon, I can take care of myself.”

That only makes Charon angrier. The way he tightens his mouth makes muscles in his neck stand out in sharp relief, uncovered by flesh.

“That’s interesting, smoothskin, because I remember us talking earlier about how you got rolled up by raiders less than a full day after you’d left the Vault. You’re lucky you’re not locked in somebody’s closet right now with your pants around your ankles.”

Gal had never understand the term ‘seeing red’ before, but she does now. It’s all she can do to keep from slapping him across the face.

“Funny how it’s not a problem when you’re the one taking them off, _Charon.”_ she snarls back. “Why don’t you go-”

“Hey, hey, what the fuck is going on in here?” a gravelly voice cuts in. Willow appears from her room, brows knitted together, and takes in the scene. Gal realizes she’s moved so she’s less than a foot away from Charon, literally staring up into his face. Willow hurries over and inserts herself in between them smoothly.

“Why don’t we shelve this conversation for now, it’s getting late.” she says reasonably. Neither Gal nor Charon back down, but Willows turns the full force of her gaze on Charon and he finally relents. Not looking at Gal, he disappears down the hallway and slams his door shut.

“Pompous ass.” Gal growls, watching him go.

“Hey, cool it, tourist.” Willow says reprovingly. One hands wraps around Gal’s shoulder. “He didn’t mean to piss you off. He was just worried about you, and he doesn’t know how to show it. He’s been pacing a hole in the floor since he came back and you were gone.”

“Which totally excuses his controlling behavior.” Gal says stubbornly, but lets her shoulders droop. Willow lets out a huff of laughter and steers her to the kitchen table.

“Want a beer? Nuka-cola?” she asks, trudging over to the fridge. Gal accepts a cold bottle of soda and takes a long draw, sighing at the taste. Willow flops down in the chair opposite and sips her own drink in silence for a minute.

“He’s not entirely wrong, though. Might be good to have an escort for a while until you’re used to life above ground and not in a cell. You ever used a gun before?” Willows frowns when Gal shrugs. “Nobody’s trying to be controlling, but The Pitt is a rough place, rougher than the rest of the Wasteland, even. If you want to go out by yourself, do us a favour and let us help you out so nobody can snatch you off the streets. That fair?”

Gal sullenly thinks about saying no, just to be contrary, but Willow in all her practicality is hard to say no to. With a sigh, Gal nods and leans forward to prop her head on her hand.

“I didn’t go out just to wander around. It was for a good reason. Somebody… needs help.” she says vaguely, trying to explain without really explaining.

Willow sees through her bullshit immediately. “That blonde slaver friend of yours?” she asks, laughing at Gal’s shocked look. “You’re not as sly as you think you are, tourist. But, to give you some credit, I’ve known there was something going on with him before you even showed up. Look at him for more than five minutes and you can tell he’s not cut out for slaving. I just never knew what the real reason that he was here was.”

Gal sighs. “I promised him I wouldn’t tell.” she explains helplessly. Thankfully, Willow accepts that with no prying.

“Well, whatever it is, just don’t get in too deep. And don’t tell Charon, he doesn’t like your friend. Can’t imagine why.” she says with a knowing smile. Gal lets out a snort.

“Trust me, that’s not news to me.” she says wryly.

\--

Gal finishes the drink an hour later, bids Willow good night, and crawls into bed in her shirt and underwear. She tries to sleep, but the bed is too soft, the sheets too hot, the room too quiet. She stares at the ceiling for a long, long time before sleep finally takes her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Nothing this chapter. What a nice change!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE IT IS. Writing this chapter was like pulling teeth. Sorry for the long, long wait.
> 
> I wanted to mention for AtD readers that except for the obvious changes in plot, the story of the characters is completely the same. So if a plot point seems similar between the two, they're probably the same. Just something to keep in mind.

Someone bangs on her door at what feels like the crack of dawn the next morning. Gal, bleary-eyed, stumbles out of the bed and swings the door open. She doesn’t remember that she’s not wearing pants until it’s already ajar. 

Charon, to his credit, doesn’t even look, though he does take in the way she rubs at her eyes with some amusement. He’s already dressed for the day in a black t-shirt and thick, dark pants. A pistol hangs from a holster at his side. 

“You going out today?” he asks. Gal blinks and nods hesitantly. The anger she expects doesn’t come. Instead, Charon looks almost resigned, as if he’s given up arguing with her. Or maybe he’d actually been listening a little bit last night when she’d been reminding him that he wasn’t her keeper. She doesn’t know which it is, but she likes the change. 

“I’m going to teach you to shoot then. Go get dressed.” 

Despite the fact that he’s already gotten an eyeful, Gal still shuts the door in his face so she can shimmy into some pants. 

When he leads her up to the roof, she realizes that it feels like the crack of dawn to her because it is actually  _ the crack of dawn.  _ The sun is just peeking over the horizon as they come out onto the crumbling concrete roof, spilling faint golden light onto the Pitt. The roof is mostly empty, but there’s some barrels set up on one end with bottles lined up neatly on top. Charon leads her to the opposite end and produces his pistol. Gal peeks over the side of the building. 

“Are we going to bother somebody, shooting at this early in the morning?” 

Charon shrugs as he checks the pistol over. “I have to work today, so this is the only time I have.” He cuts off as a loud crash echoes up from somewhere below, and someone starts yelling. “And no, I don’t think anyone will care. Come here.” 

Satisfied that everything is in working order, Charon hands her the pistol and a loaded magazine. A pistol’s a lot different than a BB gun, and the few hours she’d gotten right out of the vault isn’t enough time to become an expert,  but she knows the basics apply to all weapons - finger straight and off the trigger, keep the muzzle pointed away from anything you don’t plan to shoot, check the safety, check to see if it’s loaded. She tells herself that she’s not interested in Charon’s approval, but she feels a little flush of pleasure when he looks impressed anyway. 

“This is an N99 ten millimeter pistol. It used to be standard issue for officers in the military, so it’s a good handgun, and durable.” he explains gruffly. “Shooting a pistol is different than other guns, so I’ll teach you the grip and the stance and then we’ll shoot.” 

She pockets the magazine, moves over so she’s in front of the barrels, and points the pistol downrange. She feels it as Charon steps up behind her, though she doesn’t know how. His touch on her shoulders is firm as he squares her towards the barrels, nudging her feet further apart with his boots. 

“This is the standard stance. Now wrap one hand around the grip, and then the other over it. Like that. Good. See how the sights line up? Don’t lock your arms out - keep an easy bend. Grip tight so you can deal with the recoil.” 

It seems in all things, Charon is a good teacher. He seems to have an intuition for what she knows and what she needs to be taught, and he never makes her feel incompetent. Once he’s shown her a few stances and discussed the points of aiming, Gal loads the pistol, takes a stance, and sights in on a bottle. 

To her disappointment, it doesn’t shatter when she pulls the trigger. She sighs and lowers the gun, looking up to her mentor for guidance. 

“Your aim is good, but you’re jerking the trigger. Everybody does it when they start out. Make sure you’re practicing a slow, steady squeeze - it should be a surprise when the weapon actually fires. Here, I’ll show you.”

Gal hands the handgun off and moves aside so Charon can assume her position. He hands the pistol like it’s an extension of himself; she can tell that everything he does is done in slow motion for her benefit, and can only imagine what he looks like at full speed. Terrifying, probably. Charon spreads his legs, wraps his large hands around the pistol grip, and takes aim. His body never wavers as he slowly draws the trigger back. At the sound of the gunshot, a bottle goes flying. 

“Like that. Your turn.” 

When Gal sights in again and channels her inner Charon, she’s rewarded with the sound of tinkling glass. An unbidden grin spreads across her face as she sights in on the next bottle. That one shatters under her bullet too. She gets a little too excited and misses the next one, but she finds her focus again, takes a long breath, and gets it on the second try. 

When she turns to face her mentor, he’s smiling just a little bit, a lopsided quirk that she’s only seen a few times now. When Gal goes to hand him the gun, he waves it off and starts fiddling with the holster at his side instead. 

“It’s for you. You should take it with you when you leave the apartment. This too.” Finally detaching the holster from his side, he strips it off and steps in close to attach it for her. Very close.   
  
Charon is so tall, he has to kneel so he can buckle the bottom strap around the inside of her thigh. His touch is sure, unteasing, but heated all the same. Then, the top has to thread through her belt, so he reaches up and starts unbuckling it unbidden. Gal stumbles a bit when he tugs to pull it out of her belt loops, catching herself with a hand on each of his shoulders and moving even closer in the process.    


Charon threads the loops of the holster through her belt and starts sliding the strip of leather back through her belt loops. When he reaches forward to circle her back, it puts his face nearly into her belly. Gal desperately wants to close the gap between them. It would be so easy to just slide one hand along the back of his neck, to feel the hot skin there underneath her fingertips...

Charon drops the belt and clutches at his head. His sharp intake of breath sounds pained. Deep furrows appear in his forehead as he squeezes his eyes tightly shut. Gal exhales sharply and grabs his shoulders to steady him. 

After a moment, the pain seems to pass. He stands up, still rubbing at his head, and blinks heavily. 

“...sorry. Migraine.” he says shortly. 

He gestures to the pistol, now tucked securely in the holster on her side. “Take that with you when you leave. Don’t hesitate to shoot if you feel you need to. I have to get going. Willow will be around most of the day, I think.” 

With that, he turns towards the staircase and disappears, leaving Gal confused and feeling like she’s very much missing something. 

 

\--

 

“Have you seen this boy?” 

For what feels like the fiftieth time today, the slave in front of her shakes his head, not making eye contact, and scuttles away, clutching his pickaxe to his chest. Sighing, Gal wipes a drip of sweat from her forehead and searches around for a shaded area to rest and regroup. 

She’s been out searching for Connor for at least three hours now. For some reason, she hadn’t expected it to be that hard to find him. But getting the slaves to talk is like pulling teeth. To them, she probably just looks like another Raider, or at least just another free woman, and so she’s the enemy. Half of them don’t even glance at the picture before they shake their heads and run away. 

“This isn’t working.” she mumbles to herself as she finds a shaded corner to rest in. It’s clear she’s going to need a different strategy. Her first thought is to throw her old slave clothes on and go about dressed that way, but things are run differently out here, and the last thing she wants is for somebody to decide she’s easy pickings and drag her off into a dark alley. 

Gal sinks down into a crouch, back against the stone wall behind her, and unfolds the drawing. Connor’s face looks back at her.  _ Where are you, Connor? How do I find you?  _

She looks up when a pair of sandaled feet stop just at the edge of her eyesight. A woman with leathered skin, wearing a shapeless top and a tattered skirt, flinches when she meets Gal’s gaze. Gal stands up hastily and then regrets it when the woman stumbles back several steps. 

“I’m sorry!” she says hurriedly to the woman. The slave looks back up to her and sidles a bit closer. It’s plain she doesn’t trust Gal as far as she could throw her. 

“Are you the one that escaped from the fighting ring?” the woman asks in a thin voice. Gal nods. The woman looks down and starts wringing her hands worriedly, eyes darting from side to side. When she’s convinced nobody is in hearing range, she speaks again. 

“If you’re looking for somebody, you should ask Midea. Midea knows everything.” This is delivered in a whisper, so quiet Gal has to lean almost in half just to hear her. 

“Where do I find Midea?” she asks quietly. The slave fumbles, as if she doesn’t want to say, but relents. 

“Downtown, in the square. Across from Kai’s cafeteria. Please… don’t tell anyone I told you. Please.” with that, the woman backs away and disappears, without even waiting for an answer. Gal folds the picture back into a square with absent hands and frowns after her. 

The walk to Downtown takes about a half hour. Whether it’s the look on her face, the pistol on her hip, or just that they’re not interested, nobody bothers her. 

She wanders into Kai’s cafeteria first. The woman behind the counter doesn’t notice her immediately, too dead-set on slicing up the slab of meat she has in front of her. Gal notices that her skin is as ravaged and bloody as Sal’s was, even along her exposed midriff. 

The woman - Kai? - looks up, eyes widening, and sets the knife down hurriedly. She tilts her head and lowers her gaze immediately.    
  
“I’m so sorry, I was focusing on my work.” she says breathlessly. Gal’s mouth twists. 

“I’m in no hurry. What are you making?” Gal asks. It sounds conversational, but the truth is there’s something that looks alarmingly like a human rib cage on the counter. 

“I make the food for all the slaves in this area.” the woman mumbles towards the raw meat on the counter. “It’s mostly trog meat, not very high quality.” 

_ Trog?  _ Gal has no idea what a trog is. Maybe better not to ask. 

“Could you tell me where to find Midea?” she asks instead. 

It’s very slight, but Kai’s shoulders stiffen at Midea’s name. She looks reluctant to say anything, but she also looks like she expects a bad result if she refuses. 

“Midea lives just across the way. She should be home now…. ma’am.” the formality is pointed, bordering on insolent. Gal tries to combat it with a grateful smile and leaves, feeling awkward and a little miserable. She can feel the woman watching her as she crosses the courtyard to knock on the door opposite. 

After a few long moments, the door cracks open just enough for the person inside to peek out. Then the door is yanked open quickly. A woman wearing a headscarf and a tattered top and skirt stands in front of her, looking down respectfully just as Kai had when Gal walked in. Her face is tanned and lined from sun and hard work, but she looks in better health than most of the slaves here. No strange sores or lesions, anyway. 

“Are you Midea? Can I come in?” Gal asks. Midea just nods quickly and motions her in. 

Her ‘house’ is a one room shack with crumbling cement walls. A dirty bed occupies one corner. Broken, rusty shelves hold wooden crates and old dishware, next to a refrigerator that’s missing a door. Still, it’s a private space to herself, so Midea must be held in some regard by somebody. 

“You’re the one from the fights.” Midea says quietly, straightening up a little bit. “The one that Ashur’s prize fighter saved.” 

“Yeah,” Gal says with a little surprise, “That’s me.” She knew the fights were a big deal in the Pitt, but she didn’t think people would know who she was just by looking at her. Especially people who’d never been to a fight. “I’m looking for someone who might be here as a slave. I guess you’re the person to talk to.” 

“I do know most of the slaves in the Pitt,” Midea says thoughtfully, accepting the drawing from her. “Who is this boy?” 

“He’s… a friend’s brother. He was taken. My friend tracked him to Paradise Falls and said he’d been transferred here. His name is Connor.” 

Midea’s lips press together as she studies the drawing. Then, she blinks, and thrusts the paper back at Gal. 

“He’s here.” she says. “But if you’re planning on getting him out, consider it a suicide mission. He works directly for Ashur.” 

Gal’s stomach flips queasily.  _ Ashur?  _ There’s no way Rory can sneak a boy out from under the nose of the leader of the Pitt. It would be suicide. 

“Can you at least tell me where he is?” she asks. Midea shrugs. 

“No harm in that, I guess. There’s a disease going around the Pitt - Ashur’s wife is working on a cure for it. I guess she thought she needed an assistant, so they picked the kid. Maybe they thought, being young, he’d be less of a handful, I don’t know. Either way, they’ve got him holed up in Haven with them, and they never let him out.” 

Gal accepts the drawing back silently, thoughts churning in her head. If she goes back and tells Rory that Connor is in Haven, he might do something stupid. She needs a plan. But she’s out of her depth here. 

“Midea, I need to get in there to see him. Do you have a way?” 

The women frowns thoughtfully and seems to think it over. Then she nods slowly.

“I think I do, but - you’ll have to do something in return. Is that fair?” she asks. Gal nods cautiously. 

“I’ll have to make arrangements.” Midea says. “Come back in a few days and we’ll have a plan.” 

“And the favour?” Gal asks. Midea smiles. 

“When you come back, I’ll tell you. You can decide then if you want to go through with it.” 

 

\--

 

Gal ends up back home in late afternoon. She thinks about going to see Rory, and telling him she has a lead, but she doesn’t want him jumping the gun and rushing off to Haven by himself trying to rescue Connor. So instead she just unlocks the door and slips through, thinking musingly about taking a nap. 

The kitchen and living room are empty, but Charon’s door is cracked. Voices echo down the hallway, too quiet to make out from so far away. Gal doesn’t really intend to eavesdrop, but suddenly she’s standing in front of the hallway, hovering just to the side so she’s hidden. The voices come loud and clear from here. 

“Charon, you have to tell her. Part, if nothing else. Make it up if you have to. But you can’t leave her hanging.” Willow says firmly. 

“She doesn’t need to know. We’ll get her out of here and then find somewhere for her to go that’s  _ not  _ Underworld. She’ll forget all about us.” Charon snaps back. 

“...why are you so dead-set on keeping it a secret?” Willow asks softly. “Are you afraid she’ll treat you differently?” 

“How can she not?” is his angry reply. “Do you look at a slave the same way you look at a free man? Do you treat a murderer like an innocent person?” 

“You’re not giving her enough credit.” 

“Even if she knows, it won’t change anything. It’ll just be a burden on her that nobody can fix.” his voice drops down low. “Just let me have this for a little while. Before I have to go back.” 

“Fine.” Willow says shortly. “But don’t blame me when she gets angry at you again. She’s not stupid, she knows something is going on.” 

Gal realizes that somebody is about to come out of the room and darts back towards the front door. She pushes it open and lets it thump shut loudly this time so they can hear. Both parties emerge from Charon’s room at the sound. 

“Here I am, safe and sound!” Gal says cheerfully. “Did I miss anything?” 

They buy it. Charon, still grumpy, rolls his eyes and retreats back to his room without saying anything; Willow pulls a pack of cigarettes from her front pocket and packs them as she gives Gal a quirk of a smile. Gal can see a hint of irritation left in the jerky movements of her hands. 

“Nah. We’re living the quiet life these days. Cigarette?” 

Gal takes the proffered cigarette and follows Willow outside. She’s smoked with Amata before, back in 101, so she knows how to cup her hand around the flame and inhale to get the tip to start burning. There’s a bit of silence as Willow takes a drag and lets out a long, relieved sigh. Gal lets her have the moment for a bit before she spoils it.

“So, if I already know that Charon has been a slave and that he’s killed people, why would I be surprised to find out that Charon’s been a slave and has killed people?” she asks casually. 

Willow inhales too fast and starts coughing. Even as she’s bending over at the waist, hands on her knees, she glares at Gal, who struggles to stay nonchalant as she puffs on her cigarette. 

“You’re too nosy for your own good, tourist.” Willow grumbles, once her coughing is over. 

“It’s not my fault you two speak so loud that you can’t hear me come in.” Gal says back calmly. That’s not strictly fair - it would be difficult for them to hear her, quiet as she was - but it furthers her cause so it’s worth a try. 

Willow gives her a look, but Gal can tell her heart isn’t in it. Whatever secret they’re keeping, Willow’s convinced that Gal should know. 

“Look, even if I’m all for spilling the beans, they’re not my beans to spill.” Willow tries. Gal gives her an expectant look. The ghoulette deflects by pulling out another cigarette. 

“Willow, come on.” Gal taps out the cherry and flicks the butt away, waving off the offer of another. “You were one hundred percent right in there. If I’m kept out of the loop, I just feel like I’m being pushed away for no reason and it’s totally acceptable to be angry. But if I knew the truth, I could show him that I’m not going to change my opinion because of whatever he’s trying to keep a secret.” 

Something about that statement rubs Willow the wrong way, because she gives Gal a hard look, her pale eyes glittering. Her stance stiffens a little bit. 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, smoothskin.” Willow says warningly. “This isn’t all fun and games out here. You might think you can handle the horrors, but you haven’t seen the half of it yet.”

Gal frowns. “You stuck up for me before. Now you’re doubting me?” 

“Not you,” Willow says, her mouth twisting, “I’m just doubting that you know what you’re getting yourself into. I’m all for hard truths over pretty lies, and so is Charon, but he doesn’t need another person walking away from him because of something he can’t control.”

Willow turns away and leans back against the wall. Her back makes a very pointed ‘thump’ as she puffs on her smoke. Maybe a different tactic is in order. 

“How about this,” she suggests instead, “I’ll try to put the pieces together, and you can interject if you feel like pointing me in the right direction.” Willow neither agrees nor refuses, so Gal just forges on. “You weren’t talking about the Pitt. Whatever you were talking about, it has something to do with where you come from. Underworld.” 

Willow doesn’t react. Her gaze stays pointed out towards the street. Gal sighs. “Well, that’s going to be my first assumption. Second assumption: whatever Charon does there, it’s obviously not voluntary. And it sounds like it’s on the far side of the law. Hmm?” Still no answer. “Well, if Charon is choosing to go back, there has to be a reason. Nobody would walk back into something like that. Blackmail, maybe?” 

She finally gets a reaction. Willow shakes her head, ever so slightly.  _ No. _ __  
__  
“Okay, not blackmail. But he is being coerced somehow. But how?” this last part is more to herself than to Willow. What could somebody use, other than blackmail, to force somebody into servitude? The answer is unclear. She needs more information. 

“I think that’s enough digging for one day, don’t you? How about we go back in and make some dinner instead?” 

Willow doesn’t wait for an answer. Putting out her cigarette and flicking the butt away, she yanks the front door open and strides in. Gal follows reluctantly, still mulling over her new information. 

Dinner is maybe a little awkward, but they get through it okay. Willow and Charon both make an attempt to seem like they weren’t arguing before Gal came in. Gal realizes after her first bite of brahmin that she’s ravenous and that real food is delicious. The way she inhales her steak gets a bark of laughter out of Willow and a snort from Charon. 

“You want to come ingot hunting with me tomorrow, tourist?” Willow asks as Gal is gathering plates to take over to the sink. Gal looks at her and frowns.    
  
“Ingot hunting?” she asks. 

“Yeah. Easiest way to make money in this town, apparently, and it’ll give you some training on how to function in the real world. There’s an abandoned mill on the edge of town that we’d have to pick our way through. Interested?” 

The idea of leaving the safety and confines of the town for somewhere abandoned and dangerous is not enticing. The last time Gal had tried that, in fact, she’d been scooped up like a sack of grain and wound up as a Pitt fighter. Not her smartest move.

But I guess I’ve got to learn some survival skills eventually, she thinks with an internal sigh. 

“Yeah, sure, I guess. Let me know when you want to leave tomorrow.” 

She goes to start the dishes but Willow bats her hand away and slides into the space in front of the sink. Gal takes that for the dismissal that it is and slips off to her room. 

She spends about twenty minutes lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, before that gets too boring to continue. Groaning, Gal sits up and pads out the door to knock on Charon’s door. He pulls it open with an impassive expression. 

“You in the mood for some company?” she asks tentatively. He raises an eyebrow and then moves to the side to let her in. 

Charon’s room is much like Gal’s - a queen size bed, a few empty shelves, and a desk at one end with a black book lying on it, page marked with a pen. A shotgun of some sort is propped up against the wall to the left of the bed. A stack of armour sits on the lower shelves and pack is leaned up against the rack, half full of something. It looks like he’s already getting ready to leave. 

“You’re not wasting any time getting out of here, are you?” she asks as she surveys the room. Charon gestures her to sit on the bed and flips the desk chair around to sit in. It’s a little bit funny how small the chair looks when it holds his above-average bulk. 

“Just being prepared for when the opportunity strikes. Not that I won’t miss this shithole.” he says drily. Gal smiles and nods her agreement, though the thought of leaving makes her nearly green with nervousness. The Pitt may be a shithole, but it’s one of only two places that she’s ever lived, and there’s a whole big world out there she doesn’t understand. 

“You worried about what you’re going to do after we get out of here?” Charon asks. Gal shrugs indifferently, but she knows the way she thoughtlessly wraps her arms around herself afterwards gives her away.

“I just - my whole life has been relegated to the Vault, and then three rooms and an arena. I don’t know the first thing about living out there, and with you and Willow leaving…” she sighs. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” 

“Hey, none of that.” Charon says gruffly, leaning forward. “We’re not going to kick you to the curb with no way to take care of yourself, alright? We’ll make sure you’re set up somewhere - maybe Megaton. If you came from Vault 101, your dad probably went through there anyway, so it’d be a good place to start.” 

_ And far enough away from Underworld for me to ‘forget’ about you too, huh?  _ Gal thinks. 

But she doesn’t voice her thoughts. Instead, she falls back onto Charon’s bed and closes her eyes. The comforter under her is thick and warm. Wool, maybe. Vault blankets had always been either scratchy or plastic-ey. 

“Your bed is more comfortable than mine.” she says conversationally. When she cracks an eye to glance at Charon, he’s looking at her intently. 

It has not slipped Gal’s mind that the last time she was really, honestly alone with Charon, they were dancing the horizontal tango (and she was very much enjoying it). Things since have been… awkward. The last dregs of yesterday’s argument are still swirling around in the air, even if Charon had attempted to apologize via shooting lessons. 

_ Was it just a result of the circumstances?  _ She thinks. Fighting is stressful, and sex is stress release. Plus, it’s not like he had a whole lot of options. Now he’s got a whole city to pick from. Also, pragmatically speaking, it’s not very logical to strike up a relationship, even a casual one, with somebody that you’re attempting to push out of your life in the near future. Gal finds increasingly that she very much does not want to be pushed out of either Charon’s or Willow’s life. 

“You planning on sleeping there?” Charon asks. Gal realizes she’s been silent for a while. She glances up at him and splays her arms wide across the bed, grinning. 

“What’s that saying? ‘Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up?’ Keep rolling your eyes like that and you’re gonna strain a muscle, you know.” 

Both of them go silent for a moment as Gal thinks about how to phrase what she wants to say next. She’s never been very good at this kind of thing. 

“You know, you could come sit next to me.” she says finally, sitting up. 

Charon gives her a long look. It’s long enough that she starts wondering when he’s going to tell her to get out, but finally he rolls to his feet and draws towards her. 

His first touch on her leg is light, a bare whisper of pressure through the thick fabric. Just like the first time, this feels like a question somehow, as if he wants just one more reassurance that they’re on the same page before he goes any farther.  _ What makes you hesitate?  _ She thinks as she slides her hand over his. His hands are the most ravaged part of him, half stripped of skin and baring muscle but still strong and dexterous. 

His hand slides out from under hers and goes to her shoulder. Gal gives in to the slight pressure and lays back so that Charon can place his knees on either side of her legs and bracket her face with his arms. Her heart starts thudding harder; she can feel her face flushing. 

“I thought you were going to kick me out.” she murmurs. Charon huffs a laugh at that. His breath smells like brahmin steak and beer from dinner, but it’s not at all unpleasant. 

“I was going to, but I was afraid you’d take my blanket with you. You seem attached to it.” 

Gal notes that her hands are fisted in the aforementioned blanket and relaxes them. Then she places one on his chest lightly, mirroring the hand he still has pressed against her shoulder. 

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “You just make me nervous.” 

Charon frowns and leans backwards, taking his hand off her shoulder. She scrambles to sit up on one elbow and wraps a hand around his bicep. Charon halts and looks down at her hand, still frowning. 

“Bad choice of words. It’s a good nervous. An “I-don’t-want-to-mess-this-up” nervous.” Gal says hastily. Looking only half-convinced, he gives in when Gal tugs him back down. 

The first kiss this time is gentle. It lacks the fire of the others she’s shared with him, but her body still tingles just from the touch of his lips to hers. With a slow pace like this, she can feel texture of his lips more intently. The scrape of the rough skin is so different from anything she’s experienced before. 10 out of 10, she thinks dizzily. Paul might as well have been a damp pillow in comparison to this. 

Charon finally relents and presses the long line of his body against hers. His biceps bulge with the strain of keeping his weight off of her; she appreciates it, because even with that, he is  _ heavy.  _

When the lack of air becomes too much, Gal breaks the kiss and takes in a deep breath. Charon immediately nudges her head to the side. His hot breath on the length of her neck makes something in her abdomen curl up in pleasure. The first touch of his tongue to her skin doubles the feeling. 

“You said last time you wanted to take it slow?” he says lowly into her neck. Gal, eyes closed, lets out a groan as he rolls his hips into hers.

“I want to take it any way you want, just don’t stop doing what you’re doing.” she says breathlessly. Charon answers by sliding off of both her and the bed completely. Gal blinks and goes to sit up, but a firm hand on her hip stops her. 

“Tell me at any point if it’s too much.” he says. She raises an eyebrow, but lifts her hips as he tugs her trousers down, taking her panties with them. Then rough hands are spreading her legs wide and a warm tongue is caressing the inside of her thigh. Gal squeezes her eyes shut and lets out an embarrassing sound as she realizes what’s about to happen. She and Paul had gotten handsy, even gone all the way, but nothing like  _ this.  _

Charon eases her into it slowly, gently mouthing up both sides of her thighs before he opens up the area he’d been making his way towards with his hands. Then his tongue presses right up against her. Gal gasps as he flicks lightly and then sucks on her bud. One hand moves down to tease at her opening, pressing in slightly and then withdrawing. He pushes in a little farther with each thrust, until finally he crooks his finger and hits that spot inside her again, the one that makes her arch up from the bed with a cry. 

His tongue is moving faster against her clit, quick flicks and long, firm drags in sync with the way his finger is moving inside her. Gal throws timidity to the wind and shoves her shirt up so she can palm her breast and rub her thumb across her nipple. Charon responds by thrusting faster. 

The orgasm takes her entirely by surprise. One minute she’s lost in the growing feeling of ecstasy in her abdomen, the next she’s shaking with it as it flows outwards in every direction. Charon coaxes her through the waves with his fingers and his tongue, only stopping when she’s spent and lying limp on the bed. He withdraws his finger slowly and stands up. The sight of him wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand is immensely erotic. 

“You’re going to have to give me a second, because that was… wow.” she mutters, pushing one hand through her sweaty hair to detach it from her forehead. She feels like a limp noodle, in a good way. It is increasingly clear that what she had labelled as ‘sex’ while still in Vault 101 was, at best, more like awkward genital fondling. 

“It’s fine.” Charon responds, fumbling with the catch on his belt. Trousers unzipped, he untucks his cock from the confines of his underwear and wraps one hand around it, giving it an impatient tug. Charon locks eyes with her, still lying on the bed in disarray, and lets out a soft groan, his hand moving faster. 

Gal watches him interestedly. She hadn’t gotten a chance to really  _ look  _ at Charon before, so now she does so without shame. His cock is thick and red, with a drip of precum beading the tip. It just proudly from a nest of ginger hair that matches the few locks on Charon’s head. Charon locks eyes with her again and then lets his eyes trail down her body - then, groaning, he wraps his thumb and index finger around the base of his cock and grips tightly. 

The question is out of her mouth before she even thinks about it. 

“Can I ride you?” 

Charon pauses and looks at her strangely. “...what?” 

Gal flushes from the tips of her ears all the way down to her toes, but she’s already metaphorically jumped in, so might as well commit. 

“I just mean… well… I’ve never done it before. And I’ve always wanted to. ...do you want to?” 

Charon looks at her like she’s grown a second head, but after a minute he shoves his trousers down, toes off his boots, and drags his shirt over his head. Gal follows suit with the remainder of her clothes. She can hardly take her eyes away from him as he stretches out along the length of the bed, chest muscles and abs flexing as his body turns this way and that. In places where his skin is missing, she can actually see the muscle itself flexing

When he’s settled, Gal pushes to her knees and turns to throw a leg over his hips. Straddling his body, she takes a minute to run her hands up his torso. He throws off warmth like a furnace; even from several inches away she can feel it. 

“I’m going to have to take it slow.” she says apologetically. Charon leans forward and traces one finger around the shell of her ear, stopping to twist his fingers in the hair around her ear gently. 

“Take it as slow as you need.” he says quietly. 

Gal reaches down, takes his length firmly in hand, and lines it up with her entrance. Then, slowly, she sinks down a few inches and stops, gritting her teeth. It seems like an eternity before the discomfort passes and she’s able to sink down more. Finally she bottoms out and is able to lift back up again slowly. It takes a few passes before she’s able to judge the distance without him slipping out.

Both of them let out a sound when she starts moving faster. Laying her hands on Charon’s chest puts her at an awkward angle, and reaching behind to grasp his thighs isn’t much better. Finally, he holds his palms up and she laces her finger with his. The extra support is enough to help her go deeper each time. Charon throws his head back into the mattress, eyes squeezed tightly shut, as she lifts her hips and snaps them back down over and over again. 

That little bundle of pleasure is sitting low in her gut again, but it’s not enough. Gal lets go of one of Charon’s hands and reaches down to press at her clit. The change is immediate. The more the feeling grows, the harder it is to keep her hips going steadily; she forges on, trying to keep it up, trying to keep her fingers moving. Then she looks down at the man spread out beneath her and she’s gone. 

The minute she stops moving, spent from her orgasm, Charon grabs her by the neck and drags her down to meet his lips. She accepts his hungry kiss with enthusiasm. Then his hips snap up and he starts the relentless rhythm again. It doesn’t take long before he’s faltering himself, and then he’s pressing up into her as far as he can go, his cock jerking as he comes. 

After a few long moments, Gal leans forward and gently separates them so she can climb off and collapse on the bed. 

Unlike last time, there’s no hurry to get dressed, and they both seem to know it. Instead, Charon moves his arm out of the way and wraps it around her shoulders as she presses up against his side.

“It’s nice to be able to do this without worrying that somebody’s going to walk in.” Gal mumbles, a tad sleepily. Charon’s fingers are carding through her hair, and it feels really nice. 

“Don’t speak too soon, Willow could come in at any time.” he retorts. Gal lets out a hum of agreement and closes her eyes. The silence stretches out long enough that she does, in fact, fall asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Nothing unusual except sex.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys must have been wishing some good juju my way, because I've had a HUGE influx of inspiration. Here's the next chapter!

Gal wakes up in the morning to a warm arm slung across her waist and her legs in a tangle with Charon’s. There’s just enough light in the room for her to make out his face, slack with sleep. 

She keeps still and just watches for a while, memorizing the planes of his face and the way the shadows play over his skin. It feels more intimate than anything else they’ve done to see him like this. She gets the impression that Charon doesn’t sleep easily around other people. Though Charon’s facade of easy confidence is pretty believable in waking hours, she imagines she can see a certain relaxation in the line of his shoulders that hasn’t been there before.    


She’s just thinking about wiggling closer when a scraping sound comes from outside the room. Charon’s eyes pop open like he’d never been asleep and focus on her face. 

“What time is it?” he grumbles, disentangling his legs from hers and sitting up. The few tufts of hair left on his head are sticking up at wild angles. His voice is gruffer than usual. Gal sits up too, not bothering to pull the blanket up over her bare chest. She doesn’t miss the way his eyes flicker down from her face for a split second. 

“Dunno. But I think Willow’s awake, and I told her I would go ingot hunting with her today, so I guess I better get dressed.”

Noting that her clothes are on Charon’s side of the bed, she very deliberately crawls over him to reach them, rather than walking around. Charon responds by letting one hand press on the small of her back briefly as she shrugs her bra and shirt on. 

When she slips out of Charon’s room (fully dressed), Willow is leaning into her open doorway with a frown on her face. She’s already dressed and has a shotgun hanging across her back. She turns, sees Gal, and looks her up and down pointedly. Gal notices that her shirt is tucked into the front of her trousers and fixes it with a flush. 

“Were you in there all night?” Willow asks. Gal nods silently, still blushing. Willow turns and looks at Charon’s closed door. 

“Huh.” she says thoughtfully. Then, apparently dismissing whatever she’s thinking about, she turns to Gal and gestures towards her bare feet. “Go put your boots on and we’ll head out. Best to start early.” 

Ten minutes later, they’re out the front door and headed down to ground level. The sun is just now lightening the sky; the people around are a mixture of tired workers heading home and grumpy early risers still half-asleep. The route that Willow takes them out goes directly past Midea’s apartment. Gal glances at the door nervously, but it stays resolutely shut. 

“The working slaves don’t get treated as well as we did. Don’t get involved.” Willow says in warning as they walk. They turn down an alley that Gal hasn’t explored yet, past signs for a place called ‘the Mill’. 

When Willow opens the door to the Mill, a huge blast of superheated air swarms over Gal. The inside of the mill is dark, punctuated by dim lights and spots of bright orange heat. Slaves mill back and forth, cutting metal, shoveling coal, and transporting red-hot steel. Here and there, guards lounge against the walls, watching over the workers. 

The slaves look overworked and underfed. Most have the pallid expression of a person who never sees the sun, dark bruises under their tired eyes like swatches of purple paint. Gal watches as one woman stumbles and falls to one knee, then slowly pushes herself back up as if the movement pains her.

One of the guards off to the right of them is kicking a man on the ground in the stomach repeatedly. His barks of laughter as the man spits up blood puts her hair on end. 

“This is horrible.” Gal shouts over the crashing din. Willow shrugs, but Gal sees in her eyes that she’s disgusted too.    
  
“Fighters are prized possessions. You have to have skill to last in the arena. These slaves are nothing but worker ants. Every time one dies, they have a replacement already on hand. So no reason to treat them well.” Willow explains. Gal watches as a hollow eyed woman shovels coal into a furnace and then looks away. She never thought she’d be grateful to put her life on the line every day to ensure her own existence, but it looks like even in slavery, some people are more blessed than others. 

Gal doesn’t realize she’s stopped in place until Willow grips her arm and tugs her forward. Her eyes hold a glimmer of sympathy. 

They make it through the Mill with no incidents. Gal breathes a sigh of relief when Willow leads her through another door into a smaller room. The air is still stiflingly hot, but the blasts of direct heat from the furnaces has let up somewhat and there are no slaves in here, just a single man in armor, eyeing them.

“We’re going out to the Steelyard.” Willow says to the man, gesturing to herself and Gal. The man looks them both up and down and then grins. His teeth are yellow and rotted. 

“I know you two. You’re Charon’s bitches. What makes you think you’ll last even a minute out there?” he asks nastily. Willow steps forward swiftly, grabs the man by the collar, and shoves him into the wall. She has his hunting rifle in her hand and is holding it out to Gal before the man even has the sense to look scared. Gal takes the rifle and ejects the magazine and the chambered round, pocketing the ammo. 

“What do you say we drag you along and have a little contest? Think you’d stack up?” she says, slamming him into the wall again. The man lets out a curse, but relents and holds his hands up. 

“Alright, alright, you’ve made your point. Give me my fucking piece back and get out of my face.” he says. Willow drops him like a sack of potatoes and heads for the door at the end of the room. Gal gives him back the rifle; the man swipes it from her hands with a glare and follows them through the far door. 

The door leads back outside, to an area is fenced off all the way up to the ceiling. A walkway, also completely enclosed by iron fencing, leads off into the distance. She can see another door on the other side. Something skitters above them; Gal looks up to see a vaguely human-shaped creature, hunched over on all fours, crawling across the fencing. 

“That’s a trog.” Willow says as they make their way to the other side. “Used to be a person, but disease turned it into that. They’re the reason ingot hunting is so dangerous.” 

“Those and the crazies that live up on the blast furnace.” the slaver interjects with a nasty snicker. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll blast your heads off.” 

Gal gets the feeling that he doesn’t appreciate their attitude. He unlocks the door for them and swings it open, gesturing them through sneeringly. Willow stops just before she goes through the doorway and fixes him with a look. 

“Charon is expecting us back at 5. If we’re not there, he’ll know who’s to blame.” 

The slaver scoffs and lets out an expletive, but nonetheless, he looks cowed. Willow must be convinced because she gestures to Gal and crosses through the doorway. The slaver shuts it behind them without ceremony. 

The area they find themselves in is an extension of the factory, but this part looks dilapidated and unused. Directly in front of them is a metal walkway that goes up and towards the roof of one of the buildings; to the left is a set of steps to the ground. It’s eerily quiet, after the loudness of the Mill and the bustle of the Pitt. 

“You ready?” Willow asks, glancing at Gal. Gal unholsters her pistol and looks around nervously. 

“Not really,” she says honestly, “But no time like the present, I guess?” 

Willow snorts and moves off along the walkway. “Good answer. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I’ll be in front, and you bring up the rear, so it’s your job to watch our six. These things can climb, so make sure you’re looking up as well. If you have any doubts, just shoot it.” 

They follow the walkway up onto the roof of a low building and stop while Willow checks out the way ahead. The silence is starting to make her nervous. She realizes that part of her nervousness is that this situation somewhat parallels her first foray out into the Vault; then, she’d been scared, out of her depth, and clutching a pistol for dear life too. 

“Hey. Look over here.” Gal follows Willow’s gesture and catches sight of a pale pink creature hunched over a body just in front of them. It looks up at them and lets out a strange chattering noise.    
  
“That’s a trog. Take care of it. I’ll watch our backs.” Willow says. The trog slides over the body, still chattering, and creeps closer, then suddenly breaks out into a run. Gal takes her stance. She sights in on the encroaching creature and pulls the trigger. Slow and steady, just like she’d practiced. The trog stops, blood blooming on its chest, and falls off the walkway. 

“Not bad.” Willow says sincerely. Gal grins and lowers the pistol. 

The body is a dead slaver with chunks ripped out of his throat and one arm. Willow goes through his pockets, comes up with several mags’ worth of ammunition, and picks up the rifle that had been lying at his side. Gal keeps lookout while she checks it over. 

“It’s a 93 - Chinese Assault Rifle. It’s in good shape too.” Willow says, reassembling it. “Here, you take it. You said you had a BB gun when you lived in the Vault, right?” 

Gal holsters her pistol and accepts the rifle. It’s heavier than her bb gun, almost ten pounds probably, and longer, but the feel is the same. Sighting down it makes her feel like she’s back in the Vault, pinging little wooden targets again. 

“Yeah. My dad got it for me when I was ten.” she says as they continue on. “Not much good for anything but shooting radroaches, but it was something.” 

They continue on over the roof of the building and down the other side. All is quiet. Gal sees a few trogs here and there; they they scramble out of sight rather than approaching. The sight of a human-esque thing, naked and morphed into something really unrecognizable is disturbing in various different ways. 

A half hour into their hunt, a scream pierces the air. Gal brings her rifle up to the ready as Willow lets out a curse. Carefully, they make their way towards the source of the scream. 

Another yell comes from around the corner of a building. Willow gestures to Gal to hunker down next to the wall and does the same. When she reaches the corner, she swings her shotgun out first and then peeks around the corner. 

“Fuck, let’s go!” she snaps, darting off. Gal follows hurriedly, rifle pushed into her shoulder. 

In the middle of a courtyard, a slave is desperately fighting off a trog, who has him by the leg and is attempting to drag him closer. Another trog jumps on his torso and lunges for his throat. 

Willow runs straight up to the one sitting on the man’s torso and kicks it off. The trog gets a faceful of buckshot and goes down. The other one sees Gal coming and lunges, hissing. It’s on her before she can get her rifle up to take a clean shot. She falls flat on her back, but manages to get her boot in its chest and kicks it off. Rolling, she brings her rifle up and takes aim. Her shot catches it in the leg; Willow’s second round of buckshot puts it down. 

“You all right, tourist? Did it get you?” Willow asks, kneeling in front of her. Gal runs a hand over her chest and neck and is relieved to find no damage. 

“No, I’m okay. I got too close and didn’t have space to shoot.” she accepts Willow’s hand and lets the ghoul pull her to her feet. “Is he okay?” 

“We’ll have to work on close combat with a rifle. Pistols are easier, you can be close and still get a shot in, but rifles are a different story.” Willow turns towards the slave and gestures at his neck with her shotgun. It’s shiny with blood. “Trog got him right in the throat. He had no chance.” 

Clad in the same outfit that Willow and Gal had both worn in during their time as fighters, the slave looks disturbingly vulnerable laying on the ground. A piece of sharpened metal, similar to the shank that had almost been used on her and Willow in the slave quarters, is his only accessory. He has the same pallor as the other slaves. Somebody with ribs that prominent couldn’t possibly be expected to be successful out here.

“They send them out here without weapons?” Gal asks incredulously. Willow nods, arms crossed. 

“Like I told you. Slaves are replaceable. Weapons are expensive, and dangerous in the wrong hands.” 

“That’s…” Gal trails off. What? Disgusting? Deplorable? Completely, absolutely unfathomable? Capable of destroying her faith in the human race?   
  
“...Awful.” she decides on. 

Willow turns away from the corpse. “...yeah. It is. Let’s go, we’re wasting daylight.” 

They have no luck finding ingots outside, so eventually they turn to scouting for a building that doesn’t look too dangerous. Willow, with some checklist of desirable traits that she doesn’t share, finally chooses a building and leads them to an entrance. 

“Alright, here’s the deal.” the ghoulette says lowly. “Buildings are fucking dangerous. The close quarters make it easy for somebody to pop out and get you before you even know it. So stick with your pistol. We scout the whole building together in silence, make sure it’s empty, and then we pick it over. Don’t stop until we know it’s clear.” 

Gal nods, slings the assault rifle across her back, and pulls out her pistol. She grips the handle of the door as Willow directs, yanks it open as quickly as possible, and flattens against the side of the building. There’s no sound from inside the building. Willow peeks into the gloom cautiously before stepping in. Gal follows, easing the door shut behind them. 

The lighting inside is dim. The narrow hallways, built of steel and concrete, feel kind of like the Vault - if the Vault was covered in a layer of rust and grime and smelled like a mixture of garbage and death, anyway. Most of the shelves along the walls are empty or filled with junk. 

They creep through the first room completely silently. Gal’s eyes dart side to side nervously, attempting to see into each nook and cranny in the dark rooms. To her relief, nothing jumps out at them. 

The next room is narrow and rectangle-shaped, with some type of big machinery in the middle. Willow heads to one side; Gal follows her lead. 

Just as Willow hits the end of the machinery, she lets out a curse and brings up her pistol. Gal stumbles backwards to give her space and hits the ground hard as something yanks on her pants leg. She turns; a Trog chitters at her angrily and lunges for her calf. She kicks it in the head as hard as she can muster and then squeezes off a round. The bullet takes the trog in the arm; it shrieks in pain, but comes back at her in full force. Just as it’s leaping towards her face, Gal jams her pistol under its head and pulls the trigger again. 

The Trog collapses on top of her, covering her in warm, strange-smelling blood. Cursing, Gal shoves the trog off of her and scrambles away from it. Willow, standing over the body of another dead trog, is wiping off the blade of her combat knife on its tattered shirt. 

“Wipe your face and let’s go.” Willow says lowly. Gal obediently scrubs at her face with the front of her shirt, careful not to push any blood into her eyes, and follows.

The rest of the building is empty. Willow doesn’t relax until she’s fully checked every nook and cranny, but finally she shoves her pistol in its holster and takes a deep breath. 

“That was more exciting than I wanted it to be. I was hoping we wouldn’t encounter anything.” Willow looks over at Gal and grins at her. “That’s quite a face full of make-up you’ve got on, tourist. Should have been quicker on the draw.” 

“Yeah, thanks.” Gal says drily, swiping at her face once again with the edge of her sleeve. She feels  _ sticky.  _ “See any ingots?” 

There’s nothing lying out for the world to see, but a large safe is tucked into one corner of one of the rooms, still unopened. Willow fiddles with the lock for a minute but finally gives up, scowling.    
  
“No chance. Guess we’re shit out of luck.” she says. 

Gal leans over the computer on the desk next to the safe and taps a few keys. The monitor blinks on as the tower whirs into life. Frowning thoughtfully, Gal seats herself at the desk and pulls the keyboard towards her. 

“Maybe not. Give me a minute here.” she says distractedly. Willow shrugs and leans on the desk next to her, pulling out a flattened pack of smokes. 

Gal starts the boot-up process a couple times, getting the name of the OS and some other figures, and then goes to work in the administrative settings menu, which someone has left stupidly connected to the log-in screen. It takes the changing of half a dozen settings and several reboots, but she finally unlocks the administrator account. A quick search through the files gives her what she needs. 

“Try 43 - 56 - 07.” she suggests. Willow glances at her, eyebrows raised, and twists the dial on the safe. It pops open with an explosion of dust to reveal a whole stack of steel ingots, shiny and untouched. 

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Willow says with a grin. “Who knew we had a computer hacker at our fingertips this whole time. The things you learn about a person.” 

Maybe Gal preens a bit much at the compliment, but hey, her computer skills are pretty good. The literal hundreds of hours she’d spent tracking down manuals for each brand of computer and operating system, reading through them, and then applying what she’d learned in real life until she figured it out was worthy of a little gloating, right? 

Gal kneels down next to Willow, accepts the stack of clothes she hands her to wrap around each ingot, and sets to work filling her pack. The ingots are smaller than she’d thought they’d be, but heavy - each one has to be a couple pounds. She puts only 8 in her pack before it starts feeling unmanageable. 

“That’s enough. With the code, we can always come back later and get the rest.” Willow says, shoving the last one into her own pack and strapping it down tightly. “You that good with other computers? Our town mechanic has been bitching for a decade about needing to get the security systems up and running in Underworld.” 

“I won’t say I have a 100% success rate, but I’ve been pretty successful with every computer I’ve tried.” Gal says. “Why, are you changing your mind about letting me come to Underworld?” 

Willow sobers instantly. Setting the pack down, she pulls out another cigarette and lights it. Her eyes are troubled. 

“...I know you think this whole thing is about Charon. But it’s more complicated than that. I’ll tell you some of it, but you have to promise this never,  _ never,  _ gets repeated. To anybody.” her gaze is stern, no-nonsense. Gal nods, but Willow studies her for a minute longer before she starts speaking. 

“Everybody in Underworld thinks the raid was just a fluke. That somebody found out about us from a merchant or a traveler and decided we’d be a good hit. But it’s not true. We were sold out.” Willow’s voice is iron as she speaks. The movement of her hand, bringing the cigarette back and forth to her lips, is deliberately slow. Too slow. 

“Charon knows who it was, and so do I. His employer, Ahzrukhal. He made a deal with a rep of Paradise Falls for every ghoul in Underworld in exchange for a serious amount of caps and his own safety. I was the guard on duty when they were supposed to hit. Charon found out, tipped me off, and I got everybody out before the slavers showed up, so nobody got caught but us two.” Willow mouth twists. “Problem is, nobody knows about the deal but me and Charon, and Charon...well, let’s just say the minute he steps back into Underworld, he’ll be in no position to tell anybody else. So we’re in a bind. Charon has to go back, one way or another, and he can’t tell anybody. If I go back, Ahzrukhal will have me killed as soon as I step in the door. And if neither of us does anything, that rat bastard will pull the same trick again and every ghoul in Underworld will be here in chains.” 

The silence in the room is so complete, you could hear a pin drop. Willow finishes her cigarette and crushes it out. 

“I… don’t understand. Charon  _ can’t  _ say anything?” Gal asks slowly. “Why not?” 

Willow looks at her pointedly. They both know that Gal’s question is straying into territory that Willow has already said she wouldn’t share. Gal asks anyway. 

“So you go back, tell the town, and they get rid of this Ahzrukhal guy. Problem solved, right? There’s no way they’d keep him if they knew what he did.” 

Willow picks her bag up and plunks it down on the desk to pull at the straps. Her mouth is pressed in a thin line. Gal thinks she reads frustration in the line of her shoulders. 

“If I tell anybody in Underworld, they’ll be killed before they can do anything about it. Ahzrukhal has assets and his conscience is as nonexistent as the future of this damn country. Just trust me on this, smoothskin - any plan that leads with me walking into Underworld ends with me and possibly everybody else dying.” Willow picks the pack up, jerks it over one shoulder, and makes towards the door. She stops halfway across the room, eyes squeezed shut, and sighs. 

“I’m just...tired of people heaping secrets on my plate and expecting me to just deal with it. And I keep thinking there’s an answer to all this somewhere, but I don’t know what the fuck it is.” 

With that, Willow moves towards the door, Gal trailing behind. 

-

Gal goes back to meet with Midea the next day. She wants to find out what it is she needs to do, because she’s tired of lying to Rory. He’d looked heartbroken last night when she’d come by and said she had no leads. 

Midea receives her cheerfully, motioning her into her little apartment and shutting the door firmly behind her. 

“So, is there any news?” Gal asks, seating herself in one of the rickety chairs. Midea gives her a warm smile and nods. 

“Yes, everything is in place. We had to get in touch with somebody at the palace who can let you in. You’ll go in disguised as a cleaning slave - there’s so many of them, nobody will notice a new face.” 

Gal leans back in the chair and crosses her arms. “And what’s the favour that I need to do in return?”

Midea sobers up instantly. Though the door is shut tight and locked, she still eyes it to double-check, before leaning in as far as she can towards Gal’s ear. Her voice is a low murmur, just barely discernable over the sounds of the mining outside. 

“We’re staging a revolution.” Midea says quietly. “The slaves. All of us. We don’t have much in the way of weaponry, but we outnumber the slavers five, sometimes ten to one. We’re going to drive them out and take the Pitt for ourselves.” Midea stops for a moment, looking uncomfortable with the subject, but drives on. “The problem is the disease. We need the cure, and if we drive Ashur and his wife out without securing it, they’ll take it with them. We’ll get you into the palace and allow you and Connor safe passage out of the Pitt once we’ve taken it, but you have to give us the cure.” 

Gal frowns. It sounds so… simple. Too simple. Her gut tells her something else is going on here, but she can’t figure out what. 

“What is the cure? How will I know I have the right thing?” 

Midea shrugs. Her eyes drop for a minute, then come back up to Gal’s face. “We’re not sure, but we know Connor works directly with it. If you find Connor, you’ll find the cure. At that point you should have no trouble identifying it.” 

Gal looks at Midea’s open, pleading face, and decides it’s just nerves making her paranoid. Creeping around the palace doesn’t sound like a great idea while there’s a revolution on, so of course she’d be feeling this way. But it’s the best plan they’ve got. Better to be a part of the revolution than an unfortunate casualty.  

“I want safe passage for Charon and Willow too. The ghoul fighters. And Connor’s brother Rory.” she says firmly. Midea shrugs. 

“Done. We’ll let them out with you and Connor once we have the cure.” 

“When should I be ready to go to the palace?” 

The answer is the most unexpected part of the visit. 

“Tomorrow.” 

Gal feels the bottom drop out of her stomach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Name calling and descriptions of severe mistreatment of human beings.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all of you in the US, I hope you're holding up okay. This chapter unintentionally reflects the ups and downs of our recent political history to a T. Don't lose hope - just because you're in a bad position, that doesn't mean you can't fight back.

Rory is vehemently opposed to her plan. Namely, that he’s not involved.

“So many things could go wrong, Gal. Let me be there. Let me help.” he says desperately. Gal shushes him, looking around the tables filled with raiders around them. Nobody seems to be paying attention to them, but just one nosy person could turn the tables and ruin everything.. 

“Rory, no. It’s going to be hard enough for me to get through without getting caught. There’s no way to explain a fighter guard and a slave making their way through Haven together.” 

“At least tell me when you’re going.” Rory demands. His eyes glitter with determination. “I can’t just sit here and wait, knowing Connor is in there and not knowing when I’ll get him back.” 

She knows exactly what will happen if she tells him. Gal breathes out slowly, looks Rory in the eye, and lies to him one last time. 

“The day after tomorrow. The slaves are going to do something tomorrow to set the stage. Then, the day after, I’ll be able to slip into the palace and find Connor. I’ll bring him straight to you, Rory, I promise. Just do me a favour and stay inside until then. Lock your doors and don’t let anybody in, okay? Not until I come with Connor.” 

Rory stares her down. He’s pursing his lips so hard that a vein is pulsing noticeably in his temple. There is silence between them for several seconds. 

“Fine.” he says tightly. “I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing. Though I’m not sure I really believe that you do.” 

Gal pushes away from the table, squeezes his hand once, and leaves. 

\--

She doesn’t get a chance to see Charon again before the next day. When she comes home, he’s in his room. “He gets migraines.” Willow tells her. “They’ll go away once he’s back in Underworld, but they’re getting worse every day. ” 

Gal has to be certain that this whole complicated plan is going to work out, because the idea of getting killed and not seeing Charon again is pretty unbearable. She’s not worried about Willow and Charon getting out of the Pitt safely - they certainly don’t need any help looking after themselves. They’re waiting for the right time, and they’ll know that the slave revolution is the right time. And once Gal helps Rory and delivers the cure, she can follow them to Underworld. 

Everything is going to work. 

For some reason, chanting that in her head doesn’t help her fall asleep that night. 

\--

“You remember the directions?” the slave asks her one more time. Gal, busy fidgeting with the pistol shoved into the back of her outfit, nods distractedly. It’s only been a few days, but she’s gotten used to wearing things that covered her whole body. Armor, even. The slave outfit feels even flimsier in comparison than it had before. 

“Good. The rebellion starts in an hour. So don’t waste any time.” the slave shoves a broom in her hand and disappears without so much as a ‘goodbye’. Gal’s too nervous to be annoyed by the brusque treatment. 

The entrance to Haven looms before her. It’s a tall, pretty building with a cement bust set into the wall above the entrance. Hastily cobbled-together sheet metal covers holes in the foundation. Behind her is a statue made of wire and metal that depicts a man in chains struggling to free himself. Gal isn’t sure how anybody could look at that every day and not be sick. 

She knows that she needs to get to the third level past the guards and into the section that houses Haven’s family. She also knows that Charon is here somewhere, working, and that even the mud and grime she’d scrubbed into her hair and onto her face isn’t going to trick him. If she runs into him, she’s going to have a hard time convincing him to let her go through with her plan. It feels a little like playing Hide and Seek, only with more dire consequences. 

With a deep breath, Gal clutches the broom in front of her and makes her way to the entrance to Haven. At least nervousness is an acceptable look for a slave. Gal’s not sure she could play any other role, scared as she is. 

The guards don’t immediately see through her disguise and descend on her. In fact, they barely look at her; ducking her head, she passes them by and slips down a hallway towards the staircase. 

Though Haven is in better shape than most of the buildings in the Pitt, it’s still crumbling and dilapidated in places. The wallpaper is peeling from the walls in the hallway, and gravel and bits of plaster crunch under her sandals. She holds the broom in front of her, ready to stop in place and  start sweeping if anybody comes by. 

The other slaves, either recognizing her as an outsider or aware of her role in the upcoming rebellion, give her curious looks as they go about their own tasks. She doesn’t look at or talk to anyone. The less attention on her, the better. 

It takes her a good 45 minutes to go up all the levels and find the right area, because she gets turned around twice and has to spend a good twenty minutes sweeping in one room while a group of guards lounges in the corner, catcalling at her and hurling insults. Finally, she sees the landmarks her guide had described and finds herself in Ashur’s personal area. 

Now to find Connor and the cure. 

She hears a commotion start up on the lower levels. Rushing back to the stairs, Gal peeks over the balcony to the ground floor and sees guards pouring out the front door. One peels off, grabs a slave, and shoots him through the head. Gal immediately drops the broom and pulls the pistol from the back of her skirt. The time for blending in is over. 

Cautiously, Gal makes her way through the winding hallways. She ducks into a closet at the last second and successfully avoids a half-dozen guards that come barreling down the hallway. The closet yields up a faded jumpsuit that Gal struggles into  as quickly as possible. It’s too big, but maybe if she doesn’t look like a slave, people will be less likely to shoot her. 

As if anybody here cared a wit about the people they shot anyway, slaves or not. 

Feeling a little more confident after her costume change, Gal heads down the hallway at a faster clip, coming to a T. Looking one way, she turns the other and collides with somebody’s chest  _ hard,  _ sending her stumbling backwards. 

Things go downhill very fast from there.

Gal raises the pistol, even as she’s trying to gain her footing. The man, dressed in faded armour, holds his hands up automatically but doesn’t look concerned about Gal shooting him. Instead, he looks royally pissed. 

“I  _ knew  _ you were lying to me.” Rory hisses angrily. “I had a hunch you were coming to the palace today, and I was right. What the fuck, Gal?” 

Gal lowers the pistol, glaring at Rory. 

“That’s my line Rory. What the  _ hell  _ are you doing here? I told you to stay home!” she hisses. “You’re going to get us found out and shot!” 

“No, I’m  _ going  _ to go find my little brother and get him out of here.” Rory says harshly. “Are you going to help me or not?” 

Gal opens her mouth to reply, but catches a glimpse of someone moving behind the blond-haired man. Before Gal can pick up her pistol, Charon has Rory by the throat, unconsciously holding him up as a shield. Gal lets out a curse and meets Charon’s eyes, recognizing the shock and confusion there. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” Charon says, squeezing his arm tighter around Rory’s throat. The man scrabbles at Charon’s arm, trying to get him to let go, but he might as well be a small child for all it bothers the ghoul. 

If she could have imagined a worst-case scenario, this would be it. She thinks about lying, but it wouldn’t be any help. Everything is unraveling and she doesn’t have time to think up something convincing. 

“I’m here to help Rory. His younger brother is a slave that works in Haven. I was going to get Connor out and take him to Rory, but Rory showed up here  _ like I asked him not to.”  _

Rory’s fumbles at Charon’s arm are getting weak. Charon loosens his arm a little bit and allows the man to take in a grateful gulp of air. Then he yanks Rory’s pistol from his hip and his rifle from across his back and tosses them down the hallway, out of reach. Rory stumbles away as Charon releases him. 

We have to get out of here.” Charon says to Gal. “The slaves are rebelling. This is going to be our best chance to leave.” 

Gal looks up at Charon, eyes pleading. “We have to find Connor first. I can’t break my promises, Charon.” 

“You can’t leave with him.” Rory wheezes, one hand on the wall to support himself. His voice is scratchy from the previous pressure on his throat. Charon looks at him coldly, like he’s a particularly vile insect that needs to be crushed. 

“Gal, you can’t trust him. He’s not who you think he is.” Rory continues. Gal gives him a confused look. 

Charon doesn’t look much more enlightened than she is, but he strides forward, grabs Rory by the collar, and slams him into the wall. Rory lets out a pained grunt as his back hits the flaking wallpaper. Gal lets out a curse and tries to push Charon off of Rory, but Charon keeps his cold gaze on the blond man’s face. 

“There’s another reason Ashur let you out of the fighting ring, isn’t there?” Rory says lowly. “Because he’d heard of you before. You and the things you do in Paradise Falls. He knows you would make a better  _ business partner _ than a slave.” 

“You talk too much.” Charon says, leaning in towards Rory’s face. The corners of his mouth are drawn back in semblance of a snarl. When his fingers twitch towards the pistol at his side, Gal grabs his arm with both hands and yanks it away. Charon finally glances at her briefly, but only for a moment. 

“Charon, what the fuck is he talking about?” she demands. Charon doesn’t answer. “ _ Tell me. _ ” 

“If he won’t tell you, I will.” Rory interjects. His voice gets stronger the longer he talks, and he doesn’t look particularly concerned to be pinned to a wall by a man that could kill him half a dozen different ways. “Charon does trade in Paradise Falls. Not in goods. In people. He brings in girls from the Wasteland and sells them into slavery. I heard talk about him when I was there, but I didn’t connect the pieces until he was brought into the Pitt and searched. That picture of Connor I gave you? It came from his little black journal. It was tucked in with drawings of all the other people he’s brought to Paradise Falls and the prices he got for them.” 

It feels like the floor drops out from under Gal’s feet. She looks numbly at her hands, gripping Charon’s forearm, and lets go. Charon keeps his hold on Rory, not looking in Gal’s direction even once. The snarl slides off his face, replaced by a familiar cold, blank look. The same one she’d seen the first time they met. The one that had scared her to the bone.

Charon is a slaver. 

“That doesn’t make sense.” Gal whispers. “How…” 

The ghoul doesn’t stop her as she reaches into the pocket on his armour and pulls out the little black journal. She’s seen him pull it out countless times, now that she thinks about it, but she’s never really bothered to ask what it was for. The cover is leather, soft and faded around the edges with several scratches. Gal opens it, hands shaking. 

The first page she turns to is a composite of sketches of a girl in a white dress. Her face in each shows different emotions - happy, sad, distant. In one sketch, a bruise blooms across one cheek. The bottom of the page is labeled ‘Liza’. She swallows and flips the page.

The drawings are interspersed between pages of writing in spiky black ink. It’s too small and cramped to read easily. Gal flips a few more pages and finds a full-page sketch of a girl with bushy, dark hair, and thin features, wearing a faded shift. Despite her thinness, she’s pretty, with big dark eyes that hold some nameless emotion in them. This picture is labeled ‘Sophia’. 

She flips through the rest of the pages more quickly. The back of the journal has a list titled ‘payments’. Some of them are innocuous - ‘whiskey’, ‘ammo’, ‘travel rations’. One just says, ‘Sale - L.’ A few lines down, the list reads, ‘Sale - S.’ These prices are significantly higher, in the thousands of caps. 

  1. Liza. S. Sophia. Gal flips through a few more times and finds more names. Each is of a young woman; each is labeled carefully in the list with the word ‘sale’ and the first initial. 



Gal finds, sandwiched between a scene from a dark, smoky bar, and a sketch of Willow, a spot where a page has been ripped out. Gal fumbles the drawing of Connor from her pocket and smoothes it out on the journal. The torn edges line up perfectly. 

“ _ How could you. _ ” she whispers. Charon is looking down at Rory’s chest, where his fist is buried in the man’s collar. His face is impassive. He doesn’t look at Gal.

“Leave.” she hears herself say. Charon lets go of Rory and steps back, but doesn’t walk away. Gal very nearly draws her combat knife.

“ _ Leave. _ ” she says again. “I won’t ask a third time.” 

Charon takes another step backwards, turns on one heel, and disappears out of sight. Gal realizes after he’s gone that she still has his journal clutched in her hand. For reasons unknown, she tucks it into her jumpsuit, rather than tossing it aside. A shiver runs down her spine; her skin feels strangely cold, and numb. 

Rory is leaning over, hands on his knees. His face is red from lack of air. A blackish-purple bruise is forming around his throat. Gal stifles the overwhelming urge to punch him and turns to walk down the hallway silently. When she looks back, she sees that Rory is following. 

They see more and more people as they get closer to the center of Haven, but they turn out to be harmless. Nobody pays them any attention; everyone is too focused on fleeing the building to care anymore. She and Rory find the laboratory just where her guide had said it would be. Gal grabs the doorknob with one hand, pistol in the other, and throws it open. 

On the other side, a woman with short, dark hair and brown skin stands, her other arm twisted around the bicep of a young boy. The boy, blond-haired and scared-looking, is holding a swaddled baby to his chest. The clothes he’s wearing are tattered and worn. His ears stick out to each side, like he hasn’t quite grown into them yet. 

“Connor.” Rory says from behind incredulously. The boy sees Rory and tries to dart forward with a cry, but the woman yanks him back by the arm. Then, seeing Rory trying to push past Gal and into the room, she turns her pistol and presses the barrel to the boy’s head. 

“Stop right there or I shoot this boy in the head.” the woman says. Rory freezes in place, eyes narrowing. Connor clutches the baby tighter and lets out a sobbing hiccup. The baby, just as in tune with the situation as everybody else, starts crying loudly. 

“You must be part of this little rebellion.” the woman says sneeringly. “It was a valiant effort, but I assure you, we’re getting out of here alive, and you’re all going to die.” she takes a few steps backwards, towards the other door in the room. Rory lunges forward; the woman’s finger tightens on the trigger. “I wouldn’t do that if you want to see this boy alive ever again.” 

Besides the gun and Connor, the woman doesn’t appear to be carrying anything else. Her lab coat has no pockets. She wouldn’t leave the cure behind, would she? No, it wouldn’t make sense to. 

Unless...Gal’s eyes fall on the swaddled baby. Despite a red face and fat tears rolling down its chubby cheeks, it looks completely healthy. 

The only healthy baby she’s seen in the Pitt at all. 

“The slaves have Haven surrounded.” Gal lies with as much conviction as she can muster. “Give up the boy and the cure, and you won’t be harmed.” 

The woman lets out a short laugh and backs up a few more steps. “You’re a terrible liar, girl. Those braindead morons can barely work the mines effectively. The chances of them actually being able to hold a line around this building are slim to none, and we both know it.” 

Gal thinks frantically, but she can’t come up with any other way to turn this situation around. She’s still thinking when something rustles behind them. 

A shot rings out. Rory goes down at her side with a cry; the woman turns, still gripping Connor’s arm, and flees out the other door. Gal goes to chase after her but a lucky glance behind has her jerking to the side and out of the doorway, avoiding another bullet. 

“Well, well, look who it is. I figured you’d be mixed up in this.” a familiar voice sneers. Two slavers in armour march into the room, pistols in hand. When Gal brings up her pistol, the unfamiliar guard takes aim and squeezes the trigger. The pistol in Gal’s hand goes flying as the bullet pierces her hand. Juarez kicks it away and puts another round into her leg. Gal slams to the floor with a pained shriek, vision going black from the impact on her shattered thigh. 

“I was really disappointed when the zombie got you released with him. You’re more fun to mess with than the other fighters.” Juarez says. Gal lets out another pained cry when he steps down on her mangled hand with his boot and grinds it into the floor. The other guard is standing over Rory, loading a magazine. Blood stains the right side of Rory’s torso. 

“I’ve got to get out of here soon, but I think I have some time to enjoy killing you. At least a few minutes.”

His boot digs in harder. Gal struggles to stay conscious through the pain. 

“I even saw your corpse boyfriend making his way out of the city as I was on my way in. Did you really think he’d come to save you? No, he dropped you as soon as he had a chance for freedom. What a waste.” 

Despite the overwhelming pain in her leg and hand, the mention of Charon is enough to make her start crying. The truth of Charon’s betrayal is far worse than anything Rory can come up with. Falling limp, Gal lets her forehead droop to the floor and shudders as the sobs overtake her. 

Another shot rings out. She looks up, expecting to see Rory’s corpse slumping to the floor, but instead it’s the unfamiliar slaver that falls. His chest is one large, bloody hole. Juarez curses and bring his pistol up. A small, neat hole appears in his chest plate; eyes wide, Juarez tumbles backwards over Gal and falls into a limp heap. 

“Tourist? You in here?” Willow calls out. She steps over Rory, laying facedown in the doorway, and spots Gal weakly trying to drag herself out from under Juarez’s body. Willow immediately holsters the pistol and rushes over to roll Juarez’s body off. She takes in Gal’s mangled hand and bloody thigh with pursed lips. 

“Has anybody ever told you how stupid you are?” she asks irritably. “Because my definition of stupidity definitely includes coming to Haven on the day that there’s a _ slave revolt _ . You’re lucky I ran into Charon on the way to Haven to meet him, or I never would have known where you were.” 

“...had to…” Gal says, voice cracking. “...had to find Rory’s brother.” she glances over at Rory, still unmoving. Willow gets the hint and goes back over to him, rolling him over carefully. One shoulder is dark with blood, and his forehead is bruised. 

“He’s still alive. Looks like he probably hit his head when he fell and knocked himself unconscious. We’ll get both of you patched up and then we’ve got to get out of here.” 

Gal lays back and attempts to breathe shallowly as Willow digs through the cabinets and drawers in the room. She comes back with a handful of stimpacks, a roll of gauze, and medical tape. 

“We’re low on supplies here, so I’m going to fix your leg so you can walk and just bandage your hand.” Willow explains as she cuts at the fabric around Gal’s thigh wound with her combat knife. “I didn’t find any med-x, so this is going to hurt. Reflect on your bad decisions while I’m working.” 

It does hurt. The bullet passed right through, which means Willow doesn’t have to go digging it out, but the dirt Gal had smeared on her legs means she has to suffer as Willow cleans the wound with a square of wet cloth. Willow injects her leg with a couple stimpacks and then sets to bandaging her hand as the medicine knits the gunshot wound closed. 

“Willow…” Gal says, when the pain has lessened enough that she can talk coherently. “Did you know that Charon was selling people into slavery?” 

Willow’s eyes flicker to her quickly, and then back to her hand just as fast. “You have a couple broken fingers too. What did that guy do, shoot you and then stomp on your hand?” 

Gal stays quiet. Willow presses the gauze pads onto each side of Gal’s palm and starts wrapping with a sigh. “Listen, when we’re out of here and somewhere safe, I’ll explain everything, okay? No reason to keep the whole story from you now.” 

Hand finished, Willow trails over to Rory and kneels down next to his injured shoulder. The bullet is lodged in the wound, so she has to spend several minutes digging to find the bullet and extract it. When she finally finds it, she injects their last stimpack into the wound and wraps it with gauze, just like she’d done for Gal. Then, she heaves him up as gently as she can and throws him over her shoulder. 

“Can you walk?” Willow asks. “We need to get out of here.” 

Gal pushes to her feet with her good hand and limps her way over to Willow. The ghoul pulls out a pistol with her free hand and they make their way back through the building. Gal keeps expecting trouble around every corner, but they don’t see anyone. It’s like the whole building has become a ghost town in the last hour. 

When they reach the front door, Willow cracks it open slowly and peeks out. She slams it shut again with a curse. 

“They really do have the building surrounded. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to get out and avoid them.” 

“They’re waiting for me.” Gal tells her. “I made a deal with them so they’d get me into Haven. If they see me, they won’t shoot.”  _ Probably,  _ Gal thinks desperately. 

Willow lets her pass reluctantly. Gal creaks the door open and puts just her hand out, waving it back and forth to alert them to their presence. Then, slowly, she eases out the door, hands up in the air and away from the pistol at her side. 

The courtyard, not pretty at the best of times, is a nightmare now. The bodies of raiders and slaves litter the ground, dirt soaking up the blood and making dark spots. Just ahead of her, the giant slave statue that had guarded the bridge is completely aflame. It burns like a torch in the cloudy afternoon. Dozens,  _ hundreds  _ of slaves line the front of the building. All of them clutch rifles, pistols, even simple lead pipes. They are chanting something too garbled to be intelligible. 

Gal looks through the line frantically, trying to spot Midea. She finally finds her in the front row off to one side, standing next to a man with an eyepatch. Gal waves to get her attention, then makes her way slowly and carefully down into the crowd. She’s hyperaware of the way the slaves are looking at her, Willow, and Rory; they’re twitchy, nearly crazed. 

“Midea.” she says when they finally make it to the pair. “Looks like you did it.” 

Midea goes to say something, but the man with the eyepatch cuts her off before she can speak. 

“Where’s the cure?” he demands. Gal gives him an annoyed look, but answers. 

“I don’t have it. You sent me in there with no backup. The whole place was swarming with slavers,  _ and  _ you didn’t even tell me what I was looking for. And I know why you didn’t. You knew, didn’t you? You knew the cure was a baby.” 

Midea looks like she wants to protest, but thinks better of it and closes her mouth. The man, though, looks furious. 

“Are you telling me they got away with the cure?” he says harshly, grabbing Gal’s arm. Automatically, Gal pries his pinky off and twists it until he lets go with a curse. 

“There was no way we were getting out of there with it.” Willow adds. “Like Gal said, the place was crawling with slavers. She was shot twice trying.” 

Gal shoots Willow a grateful look. Willow probably doesn’t even know what she’s talking about, but she supported Gal just the same. 

“We’re doomed, then.” Midea says lowly, wrapping her arms around her torso. “If we don’t have the cure, there’s no way we can stay here.” 

“Luckily for you, I know where Ashur went, and I know how to get to him.” Willow follows. Gal turns and gives her a surprised look. How could she possibly know that? Willow doesn’t look down at her, just stares directly at the man in the eyepatch. 

“He went to Paradise Falls. And if you want to kill him and get that cure, you’re going to need our help.”

\--

They retreat to Midea’s apartment to hash out the details - Gal, Willow, Rory, Midea, and the man with the eyepatch - Wernher. It’s nearly the only place in the Pitt that isn’t covered in blood. All around them, former slaves are dragging bodies out of the streets and piling them into carts. Buckets and buckets of water are splashed into the street, trying to get the stains out of the dirt. 

Gal is used to blood and death by this point, but the sheer scale of it is sickening. There’s enough slaves lying facedown on the ground to make her wonder if the rebellion was really worth it. Clearly, the cost was high. 

Willow puts her foot down as Wernher attempts to start negotiations right away and demands that Gal and Rory be treated first. Gal’s fingers have to be re-broken and set before they can knit themselves back together. They worry over Rory, who has been unconscious for over an hour at this point, but once his concussion is seen to, he comes to hazily and seems no worse for the wear. 

“Where’s Connor?” he asks, as soon as he’s coherent enough to speak. The look on Gal’s face must be enough to give it away. Pursing his lips, he turns away. 

“They took him to Paradise Falls. We’re going to take the settlement and get him back, Rory. I promise you.” Gal says quickly. Rory is silent. When she goes to touch his hand, he rips it away. 

“How exactly do you propose we get into Paradise Falls? The security there is just as tight as it was here, and we’ll be going in almost completely blind.” Wernher says, leaning back and crossing his arms. His one eye is narrowed. He’s a lot colder than Midea is - ruthless, that’s a good word for him, Gal thinks. Midea sits next to him, looking equal parts worried and hopeful. 

“We’ll also be better equipped for this attack. We can round up weapons for everyone and make a plan.” Willow replies levelly. 

“We don’t know anything about Paradise Falls.” Midea interjects. “It would be suicide.” 

Willow considers this. “There is somebody that knows Paradise Falls, and he knows it well. He would be able to help us get into the settlement and attack from the inside out. You’ll need time to prepare for the assault; in the meantime, we’ll bring him to you and figure out a plan of attack.” 

Midea and Wernher exchange a look. They seem unconvinced. 

“Look, the Pitt is going to be a horrid place to stay.” Gal adds persuasively. “The cure isn’t finished, and who knows how long it will take to finalize? In Paradise Falls, you won’t have to worry about the trogs outside the border or your children being born into squalor. You can spend your time researching the cure. Plus, the Capital Wasteland is better suited to trade, and you’ll need that to keep yourselves going. You’d never be able to survive here without slave labour.” 

Midea nods, looking thoughtful. 

“I think they’re right.” she says to Wernher. “There’s too many bad memories here. And Paradise Falls is a smaller settlement; it won’t be hard to take, not even as hard as the Pitt was. We can do this.” 

Wernher eyes them all. The silence stretches out as he thinks it over. Finally, he nods grudgingly. 

“We’ll move everyone to the old fort just north of Paradise Falls. From there, we can start doing reconnaissance and stockpiling weapons. You show up at Fort Constantine a month from the day you leave here, or we’ll find you ourselves.” 

The threat is clear. He faces Willow and Gal down with a hard gaze. 

Willow is the first to break eye contact. She gets up silently and heads for the door, pausing to wait for Gal with one hand on the doorknob. Gal approaches Rory, searching for something to say. When Rory speaks, his tone is quiet and cold. 

“I’m going to go with them to the fort. They’ll need my knowledge of the slavers.” 

That’s clearly all he has to say to Gal. She accepts that and leaves without a word. 

She and Willow make their way back to their apartment. As the day draws to a close, more and more former slaves abandon their clean-up and turn to merriment. The sounds of yelling, crashing bottles, and loud laughter echo down the streets. Despite the change in ownership, the Pitt sounds just the same as ever. Gal suppresses a shiver at that thought. 

When they reach the apartment, Willow locks them in, flips the deadbolt, and attaches the chain. Then she shoves an empty bookcase in front of the door. Gal curls up on the couch and watches her. She accepts the Nuka-Cola that Willow hands her from the fridge but doesn’t drink it. Her other hand clutches at the small black journal she’d taken from Charon. Her thumb rubs at the soft leather cover like a worry stone. 

“It’s been a hell of a day. I never expected for you to drag me into a slave rebellion.” Willow says, breaking the silence. She slouches down on the couch next to Gal and takes a long swig from her beer. 

“I didn’t mean to. It just kind of...happened.” Gal says numbly. Her fingers play along the divots and bumps on the bottle. Willow takes a second long drink from her beer and empties the bottle. 

“I know. It wasn’t your fault. The rebellion or the kid getting taken. You know that, right?” 

Gal doesn’t answer. 

“You can’t blame yourself for other people’s actions.” Willow continues gently. Too gently. It sounds strange, coming from such a rough-and-tumble woman. 

“No, but I can blame myself for falling for other people’s lies.” Gal says sourly. She knows Willow knows exactly what she’s talking about. The image of Charon laying next to her, face slack with sleep, comes to her mind unbidden; she slams the journal down on the coffee table and brings the Nuka Cola to her mouth. 

“Tourist. ...Gal. Look at me.” Gal stares at the opposite wall for one more moment stubbornly, then grudgingly turns to face Willow. 

“I know what I’m about to tell you is hard to believe, but it’s the truth. I’ve seen it.” she explains. Gal struggles to keep her face expressionless. “Charon isn’t a monster, and he isn’t a slaver. He has no choice but to do what his owner tells him. And his owner, Ahzrukhal, is a very bad man.” 

“Yes, Willow, that is hard to believe, because last time I checked, I didn’t see anybody here strapping a collar around his neck.” Gal says angrily. Tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. She blinks them back shamefully, struggling to keep her voice from wavering. “He walked out of here on his own two feet to go back to Underworld. So what is it? What’s making him do it? If it’s not blackmail, what the hell else could it be?” 

Willow watches her spit the words out. She mercifully ignores the tear tracking its way down Gal’s cheek. Gal finishes speaking and rubs at her eyes, feeling cold. Her face feels too hot, but her body is shivering like it’s below zero in the apartment. 

“Listen to me, Gal. There are things going on outside your Vault, outside these walls even, that are hard to understand.” Willow starts, patiently. “Charon’s case is one of them. Whatever it is that makes him obey the contract Ahzrukhal has, it’s strong and completely unbreakable. When Charon refuses an order, it physically hurts him. I’ve seen him lose consciousness if he fights too hard. You saw how bad his migraines were when he was here. He was having them because Ahzrukhal ordered him to come back as soon as he was able, but Charon wanted to wait until the right time. Until he could get you and I out too.” 

Vision blurry, Gal sets the drink on the table and buries her face into her knees, arms wrapped around the front of her calves. It’s impossible to keep from crying at this point; she just focuses on choking back the loud sobs and lets the tears roll down her cheeks freely. A hot, rough arm drapes across her hunched shoulders and pulls her over to lean on Willow’s torso. Gal starts a bit at the touch, but accepts it. 

“Charon has been Ahzrukhal’s slave for fifty years.” Willow continues. Her voice is starting to sound rough, like the subject is hard for her to talk about too. “And he may do everything Ahzrukhal’s orders him to do, but he hates it, and he hates Ahzrukhal. He blames himself, even if it’s not his fault. He didn’t want you to know, because he was afraid you’d blame him too. He’s not a monster. He’s a man in a bad position.” 

Gal cries for a long, long time. The legs on the jumpsuit she’d taken from Haven are soaked by the time she’s done. Her head pounds like somebody has taken a sledgehammer to it. Willow sticks with her through it all, arm heavy and motionless on her shoulders, torso strong and supportive at her side. 

“....so. Let’s say I believe you. Why hasn’t anyone done anything?” Gal asks when her voice is steady enough to handle the words. 

She finds that she does believe Willow, even if she can’t quite say it yet. Maybe it’s just baseless optimism, but when she imagines him, she doesn’t see the emotionless fighter he’d tried to project. She sees the man that nearly blew his own cover because he didn’t want to kiss her without her consent. She sees the teacher that risked his own safety to make sure that she didn’t die in the arena. She sees Charon, protective and kind and patient. 

“Nobody wants to risk their neck for a man who won’t even talk to them. Even before, when Ahzrukhal was willing to sell his contract, everybody thought it was a trick. You’d pay the money, and then Charon would come out of the shadows and break your neck. You’ve seen how deadly Charon is - with somebody as smart as Ahzrukhal pulling his strings, the chances of anybody getting the jump on the two of them is slim.” Gal looks up and sees that Willow is studying the beer bottle in her hand thoughtfully. “You’d have to find a way to beat the system. If you could anticipate how Ahzrukhal would react, you could beat him at his own game. And I think I’ve figured out how to do that.”

She pauses and looks up at Gal. “I know it’s a lot to ask, after all this information, but I’d need your help. Are you in?”  

Gal picks up the black journal with both hands, thumbs sliding over the cover, and nods. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Nothing special.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Many feels in this chapter.

“Is that a smoothskin?”

“Where’d she come from?”

“What’s she doing in Underworld?”

Gal has never felt so exposed in her life. Within the first thirty seconds of stepping into Underworld, ghouls have been literally peeking out of doorways to catch a glimpse of her. You would think she’s a unicorn, not a regular person. It’s unnerving. The architecture of Underworld isn’t helping either; the several days spent traveling here were long enough for her to get used to the sweeping scenery of the Wasteland, and being inside Underworld feels, at least topically, like being back in the fighter cells.

Breathing in deep, she adjusts the pack on her shoulders and takes the stairs up to the second floor. A crooked, home-made sign on the wall advertises for ‘Carol’s Place’. Gal dodges a gaping ghoul and slips into the room.

Behind the counter, a female ghoul in a faded blue dress is seated. She has what looks like a piece of embroidery in her hands. The few pieces of hair left on her head are a light straw blonde. She looks up as Gal strides up to the counter, stares for a moment, then stands with a beaming smile.

“Well, hello there! It’s been a long time since we’ve had one of your kind in Underworld!” she says cheerily. Nobody has ever made such a derogatory statement (seriously? ‘One of your kind’?) sound as sweet as this ghoulette has. Gal finds herself smiling back automatically, shuffling in place a bit under the brightness of that smile.

“Hi. I’m looking to rent a room…?” she asks. The ghoulette smiles even wider.

“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place. We don’t have separate rooms, but I can set you up with a bed, and each one is divided off. As much privacy as you can get around here.” she leans under the counter and comes back up with a coloured plastic tab with a number on it. Gal counts out a handful of caps from her stash and trades it for the tab.

“Don’t mind the staring now. It’s been a bit of a tough year for Underworld, so people may be a bit suspicious. But we’re a friendly group, and you’re always welcome here.” Carol continues. Gal senses the meaning behind that statement easily enough. She can’t imagine that business has always been bad enough for Carol to react this happily to a lone traveler renting a bed. Under the surface, Underworld is obviously hurting.

“We serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner here at Carol’s Place if you’re hungry, and drinks too. If you need supplies, Tulip on the lower level can help you. Is there anything else you need?”

Carol looks at her expectantly. Gal smiles back and tries not to swallow too conspicuously.

“Yeah, uh… is there a bar called the Ninth Circle here?”

Carol’s smile droops.

“I don’t want to suggest that you can’t handle yourself, dear, but that’s not the place for a young smoothskin like yourself. The Ninth Circle is…  a rough crowd.” Carol says uneasily. One hand bunches in the fabric of her skirt and wrings it nervously.

Gal smiles in what she hopes is a reassuring manner. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll make sure to be careful. Could you give me directions?”

Carol purses her lips, but walks her to the entrance of Carol’s Place and points down the hallway obligingly. Gal makes note of the doorway she points to and heads back inside to find her ‘room.’

She’d thought, on the way here, that she’d be itching to get to the Ninth Circle as fast as possible. Now, she finds herself strangely reluctant. Instead, she curls up on the bed that Carol directs her to, shoes kicked off, and flips through Charon’s journal. She’d read it, of course, cover to cover. Even if she’d consciously believed Willow’s words, she’d needed more proof to cement her beliefs.

The little black book had given it to her in spades.

Charon, it turns out, is a fantastic artist. Nearly every other page is full of sketches - residents of Underworld (Gal had recognized Carol immediately - she looked exactly like Charon’s drawing), panoramas of the Wasteland, the insides of buildings and dilapidated subway tunnels. And, in the back, several sketches of her. Her face, lips curling into a smile. The curve of her neck as she looks off into the distance. Her bare back as she sleeps in Charon’s bed, hair splayed across the pillow.

Gal wasn’t sure at first what they were. Part of the documenting process? Some step in Charon’s business procedures? But now she knows better. They’re memories. Charon, at some point in his 200-plus years of living, had taken to journaling and drawing to preserve the things he’d seen and the places he’d been. The people he had met.

It’s pretty impossible, after she’d looked more closely, to misinterpret Charon’s intentions. She sees in his portraits a spark of the people that he’s drawing. For Sophia - a timidness, undercut by a little curl of a smile. Liza projects an assertiveness that reminds Gal of Amata. She looks like somebody that gets what she wants, and doesn’t take no for an answer. Charon has done everything he can to captures people’s spirits in his drawings. Gal would say he’s succeeded.  

She flips through the drawings back to the first entry. This journal had only been started a few years ago - Gal suspects that there have been several incarnations of the little black book across the years, each one discarded or stored somewhere as it was filled.

_Day 18851_

_Back from my trip to the Falls. Arrived 0300. Hoped Ahzrukhal was already asleep, but he waited up to hear how things went. The look on his face when I dropped the bloody bag of caps in his hand was priceless. If I can’t get him to care about the lives he’s ruining, I can at least make reaping his reward dirtier than he expects._

_It was hard this time. Sophia was… different. Not that the other girls were easier, but at least they’d only stayed in Underworld a few days. Sophia was here 3 months and 14 days._

_She begged, every damn day. She would ask me to let her go or to help her escape._

_It wasn’t until the slaver at Paradise Falls had her by the neck that she stopped begging._

_Day  18856_

_I see Sophia’s face in my dreams at night. I see what happens to her. It doesn’t matter how little I sleep, how long I stay awake - the minute my eyes close, there she is._

_I keep hoping that one day when I put my shotgun to my chin and pull the trigger, I’ll have forgotten to unload it. Hasn’t happened yet._

_Day 19378_

_Ahzrukhal is planning something. He thinks he’s keeping it close to the chest, but he’s had me so long he keeps forgetting I’m around._

_This is bigger than the rest of his schemes, and it has something to do with Underworld. I won’t let him wreck this town like he’s wrecked every other settlement we’ve been a part of. These people deserve better._

_Day 19384_

_I know what he’s going to do. I have to stop it. He thinks that he’s going to get away with it, but not if I can fucking help it._

_Willow will help. I know she will._

There’s a huge blank after this. Gal flips forward until she comes to the most recent entries.

_Day 19583_

_If Willow keeps demanding I tell Gal about the contract, I’m going to wring her damn neck. The first thing she’d do is come running, thinking she could do something about it. Willow probably would too, fool that she is._

_I’m not losing either of them to Ahzrukhal. I’d rather they hate me._

_Gal’s got a bright future ahead of her. She’s smart, a quick learner, and she’s got all the right instincts to do well out there. I’d like to see somebody get between her and her search for her father - she’s gotten so good at the hip toss she nearly broke me in half last time she threw me. She deserves the chance to get out of this shithole and find something better. Willow, too._

_Never thought I’d be in a situation where fighting a deathclaw bare-handed is a better option than being home. At least here, I get to live by my own rules. I spend my days training, instead of doing someone else’s dirty work. I wonder how crazy the two of them would think I was if I told them I wanted to stay. Willow would understand._

_Day 19612_

_We’ve been freed. That means our days here in the Pitt are numbered. The headaches have already started; I give it about a week before they’re debilitating enough that I can’t handle it anymore._

_We need a distraction so we can slip out unnoticed. There’s been talk of a revolution among the slaves. They better do it damn soon, or I may have to start it myself._

_Going back is going to be harder than I thought. Maybe it would have been better to never get my freedom back at all. It’s going to make standing in that damn corner, cracking heads, fucking unbearable._

Gal snaps the journal shut, not able to handle any more. Charon’s life reads like a horror story. It’s enough to get her up and moving; toeing her boots on, Gal slips a pistol in the waistband of her pants and ambles out of Carol’s Place.

Even with her new-found determination, taking that final step into the Ninth Circle is hard. She hesitates in front of the door until it swings outwards and nearly catches her in the face. Blushing, Gal mumbles an apology to the ghoul couple stumbling out and slips inside.

Just like when she’d first seen Carol, Gal recognizes the inside of the Ninth Circle like she’s been here before. She hasn’t, of course; it’s just Charon’s frequent sketches of the place that make it seem familiar. The room is dim, smoky, lit only by a few wall sconces. The bar is up against the back wall; to the right, an open doorway leads to another room. Almost every table is full. The low buzz of chatter in the room doesn’t die down completely, but she conversations trail off as tables of ghouls near the door turn and look at her. The looks are varied - suspicion, curiosity, annoyance. Even the man behind the counter stops polishing the glass in his hand and looks at her expectantly.

And, in the corner…

She can’t look at him, but she feels his gaze on her face. She feels how heavy it is, and she knows instinctively that he’s angry that she’s here. No, not angry. _Furious._ Gal struggles to keep a straight face and focuses on putting one step in front of the other, until she’s made it to the bar.

Ahzrukhal’s face has strangely never been featured in Charon’s journal, so she hadn’t known what he would look like. She’d sort of expected him to _look_ evil, somehow. But he just looks like another ghoul, appearing middle-aged underneath the damage to his face. His eyes are the most abnormal thing about him; slightly too close together in a thin face, and almond-shaped. He’s not bad-looking, though the suit he’s wearing is faded, patched, and doesn’t fit quite right.

Then he smiles. That smile causes a visceral reaction in her stomach, like somebody has wrapped a hand around her insides and yanked on them.  The smile itself is polite; it’s the smile of a business owner to a patron. But Gal sees something darker in in the fringes of it, something less pleasant and more repugnant.

“Well, look what we have here.” he says smoothly, settling a glass down and turning his full attention to her.  “Welcome to the Ninth Circle, my good lady. Are you looking for a drink?”

Her stomach lurches again. She knows that this man has done. She and Willow had discussed it at length, everything Willow knew of, more she’d only heard in rumours. It’s doubtless that there’s even more that nobody knows about but perhaps Charon and Azrukhal himself. Gal wants to jump over the table and shove her pistol in his mouth, but she has to approach this the right way, and that’s certainly not it.

“Yes, please.” she tries, finding it comes out only a little stilted. “Do you have whiskey?”

Ahzrukhal gives her another smooth smile and pours a few fingers of whiskey into a glass.

“A discount for the pretty lady. Four caps.” he says, pushing the drink towards her. Gal drops the caps on the table and waits for him to reach for them before she snatches the drink up. She doesn’t want him to touch her. At all, if possible.

“You seem nervous, my dear. Are ghouls a new experience for you?” Ahzrukhal asks as he whisks the caps away. Gal takes a sip of the whiskey to delay answering.

“I’m sorry. Everything is new for me at this point. I just came from a Vault.” she says, once the whiskey has stopped burning. It doesn’t feel like much of a lie; her trip across the Capital Wasteland had been instrumental in reminding her exactly how much she _doesn’t_ know about survival out here. Thus, it feels a lot like she just walked out of 101 yesterday. Gal takes another sip of the whiskey and clutches at the glass with both hands.

Ahzrukhal leans forward on the bar and into her space. His milky eyes gleam with smooth confidence. Gal resists the urge to back away, but one foot still stumbles backwards. He smells sour, like rotting milk or something.

“Well, let’s hope you’re here long enough to get used to our fine city. There’s plenty of… charm… here to sample.” The tone in his voice is suggestive enough that she feels the need to go take a very long, hot bath to scrub the oiliness from her skin. The skin around his eyes crinkles as his lips draw upwards.

Gal gives him another quick, nervous smile, picks up the drink, and flees.

She realizes very quickly that every table is taken in the Ninth Circle. Every table, but the one right next to Charon. Sighing inwardly, Gal walks towards it before the effect of being near Ahzrukhal has faded and she loses her nerve. Like a magnet, her eyes slide up and to the left to catch on Charon’s face.

He looks _livid._ Gal can practically see him grinding his teeth behind his lips. His hands, crossed in front of his chest, are white-knuckled where they grip his biceps. She half-expects the peeling wallpaper he’s staring at to catch on fire from the intensity of his glare. But he doesn’t say a word as Gal sits down, back to him, and sips her whiskey. The back of her neck heats up under his scrutiny, though he’s never facing her direction when she turns her head to look.

Gal bolts her drink, buys one more to prolong her stay just a little longer, and then retreats. The atmosphere, the staring - even the conversation around her is too much. She lays in bed that night, trying to sleep but failing miserably.

\--

Having been awake until four or five, Gal sleeps in until noon the next day and wakes up groggy and sore. She takes lunch with Greta, who seems content to ignore her presence completely and inhale her plate of food, and Carol, who makes up for her partner by being cheerful and talkative.

“You said you’ve had a rough year?” Gal asks casually as she picks at her spaghetti. Greta gives her a harsh look and disappears from the table, taking her empty plate with her.

“Yes, well.” Carol says reluctantly. “It’s just that the town ran into a spot of trouble several months ago and we had to evacuate. Everybody is still settling in again.”

“No trouble now, I hope?” Gal continues pryingly. Carol lets out a forced laugh and sets her fork down.

“No, no, nothing to worry about. Though I do wish you wouldn’t have gone to the Ninth Circle last night. We serve drinks here too, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

Gal waves off the offer and spends the afternoon wandering Underworld. She finds the residents, once the initial shock has worn off, are friendly and welcoming. The shop owner downstairs, Tulip is especially excited to have somebody to converse with. Gal makes a mental reminder to come back with some trade supplies when she can, because she definitely needs the caps.

This evening, she stays later at the Ninth Circle, until about one. Ahzrukhal’s small talk gets increasingly more flirtatious; the discounts get higher. And Charon’s attitude grows stiffer and angrier, until she can barely stand the tension in the room. She can’t stumble out fast enough after the last customer.

It’s not until the third night that she gets her courage up and takes charge of the situation. The last customer besides Gal trickles out just after two AM. She sets her half-consumed whiskey down and makes her way for the bartender in the pinstriped suit.

“I want to talk business with you.” she says, crossing her arms on top of the bar and leaning forward. Ahzrukhal looks up and affects a manner of surprise, as if he hadn’t noticed her approaching. She doesn’t buy it for a minute.

“Is that so, smoothskin?” he says, eyeing her. “And what type of business would that be?”

“I want to buy Charon’s contract.” she says. Reaching one hand down, Gal pulls a bag of caps from her pocket. It jingles heavily as she tosses it onto the bar. Ahzrukhal wastes no time reaching for it.

“His contract, is it? Well, let’s see what Charon has to say about that.” Ahzrukhal looks up over her shoulder towards his bouncer and makes a ‘come here’ motion with his fingers. The smile on his face is greasy and vile.

A large hand wraps around the back of her neck and yanks her backwards before she has a chance to react. Her pistol is ripped from the back of her pants. Gal ignores the hand on her neck and slams an elbow backwards towards Charon’s groin instead, but Charon anticipates her move and pins her arms against her side with his free hand. Then he lets her neck go and runs a pragmatic hand down all sides of her torso and each leg. The combat knife in her boot is found and discarded.

“I really was hoping you would stick around a few days.” Ahzrukhal says, emerging from behind a bar. Dark amusement settles across his features as he watches her struggle feebly against Charon’s grip. “My stash of caps has been running low these last few months and I’ve been looking for a way to make some money on the side.”

“What the hell is this? Let _go!”_ Gal shrieks, wrenching her arm free from Charon’s grip. She reaches back and slams her wrist into his side, feeling a jolt of pain from where her bracelet digs into her skin. Charon responds by trapping her arm against her ribs with his other hand and pressing the side of his head against hers to keep her from headbutting him. His breath is hot against her neck; his arms are cruelly tight around her middle, squeezing the air out of her.

“Well, if we’re going to have a pretty lady around for the next few days, we might as well take advantage of it, don’t you think, Charon?” Ahzrukhal muses. He steps forward and draws his index finger down the side of Gal’s face. Gal’s teeth snap shut just after he withdraws, missing by a millimeter. “Ah, a fighter. Just your type, isn’t she? I’ve been thinking you need another reward for ruining my last business venture, so why don’t you take her into the spare room and show her our special brand of hospitality? ”

“Go fuck yourself.” Charon says back icily. His arms grip tighter around Gal’s waist; she wheezes and tries desperately to draw in a breath of air, but his arms are a vice grip around her diaphragm. Involuntary tears prick at the edges of her eyes as her vision wavers before her.

“Language, Charon.” Ahzrukhal says reproachingly. “Or would you like me to come in and observe? I know you enjoy performing for an audience.”

Charon doesn’t reply this time. Instead, he heaves Gal up like a sack of grain and throws her over his shoulder. She hits with an ‘oof’ and sucks in a grateful lungful of air, even as she feels a bruise forming on her hip from the buckle on his armour. She catches one last glimpse of Ahzrukhal’s smug face before Charon turns the corner into the next room and carries her through another doorway on the far side.

The first thing he does is shut and lock the door. The second thing he does is throw her onto the floor unceremoniously. Gal nearly knocks her head against the hard tile, but catches herself at the last second on her elbows, ensuring yet another painful bruise. When she rolls over, he's in the corner, leaning his shotgun carefully up against the wall. He turns, task done, and stalks towards her.

Gal has never seen such rage in his milky blue eyes. Charon picks her up, as easy as if she were a toy ragdoll, and slams her against the concrete wall so hard the wind is knocked out of her. His grip on her wrist is cruelly, painfully tight.

“You _stupid little child.”_ he says lowly, voice cold enough to frost the air between them. “I spent _months_ with you. I taught you how to defend yourself. I _told you_ to stay the fuck away from Underworld. But you didn’t listen, and now you’ve thrown it all away.”

Gal had expected anger. Even overt anger. She’d been prepared for that, she thought. But she wasn’t prepared for the madman that stands before her now. He looks like he wants to tear her limb from limb.

“Do you understand what kind of position you’ve gotten yourself into?” he growls. “Rory told you what happened to the girls that showed up here before you. What I _did to them_.”

Gal, intent on stopping that train of thought in its tracks, finally finds her voice. “I know what _Ahzrukhal_ made you do to them. It’s not the same, and I’m sorry that I doubted you before.” she stops, breath hitching, and looks him straight in the eye. “I’m so sorry, Charon. I was wrong. Willow told me everything, and I was wrong.”

Charon lets out an honest-to-God _roar_ and slams her into the wall again. She feels like the whole room shakes, but it could just be her own brains rattling around in her head.

“Then you know _exactly_ what’s about to fucking happen to you. And then Ahzrukhal is going to make me take you to Paradise Falls in fucking chains.” he hisses.

Gal hears a soft thump from outside the room. Hurriedly, she throws up a knee, forcing Charon to deflect it and pin her against the wall again. He doesn’t seem to notice the sound.

“Charon. What he makes you do is not your fault. You need to understand that.” Gal says pleadingly. Twisting her hand awkwardly, she runs her fingers over the inside of his wrist gently, the only part of his skin she can reach. He snatches his hand back like her touch is poison. Then he groans in pain, clutching at his head with his free hand. The ghoul’s breathing becomes laboured as he lets her go and doubles over. Both hands cover his eyes, as if the dim light in the room is too much. Gal makes a small sound and reaches out to press one hand against the back of his head.

Just as her hand brushes skin, the blast of a gunshot rings through the small room. Charon is up and grabbing for his shotgun before she moves a muscle. Gal lunges forward and tries a swipe at the gun; Charon pushes her off and is out the door in a flash. Gal lets out a curse and follows as quick as she can.

A second gunshot sounds. Gal skids around the corner into the main room and takes the scene in. Against the far wall, behind the bar, a splatter of blood  paints the cupboards and glasses. If anybody is in the room, they’re hiding below the bar. Charon brings the shotgun to his shoulder and heads for the counter.

“ _Stop.”_ a gravelly voice rings out. Charon stops dead in his tracks.

Something appears over the top of the counter. An unfolded sheet of stiff paper, yellow with age. A thin arm, corded with muscle, follows it. When Charon doesn’t shoot, Willow’s head peeks up above the counter and then she stands fully. Her face and torso are splattered with blood.

The room is silent for a few long moments. Charon lowers the shotgun slowly.

“I need to see it.” He says finally, breaking the silence. “Willow. I need to see it.”

Willow moves out from behind the counter. It’s clear she has to step over something. She gets completely out of the way and then gestures Charon towards the bar.

Charon walks over slowly. His steps are jerky, uncertain. Gal follows at a distance, moving around to the side so she can peer through the opening. All she can see is a leg clothed in a light, pinstriped suit, laying on the floor.

Charon brings the shotgun to his shoulder. He pulls the trigger once. The leg jumps; more blood splatters the back of the bar. Charon pulls the trigger again. And again. And again.

By the time he stops, Gal can’t see anything in the opening but a bloody stump. Charon lets the shotgun slip from his shoulder and stares down at the remains of Ahzrukhal. Willow folds the piece of paper back up and presses it into Gal’s hand.

“You did good, kid. I was getting worried, waiting on your signal.” Willow murmurs. Gal fiddles with the bracelet on her wrist, depressing the small button on the side. She’d cannibalized a radio emitter to broadcast a signal when the button was depressed. Willow, hunkering down outside the Museum of History each night, had been waiting with her radio tuned to the same frequency, ready to burst in as soon as Gal used it.

“I’d forgotten how fast he is.” she says sheepishly. “He had me pinned before I got to the button.”

Charon turns to them. His face is unreadable. He spots the contract in Gal’s hand and steps up to her, slinging his shotgun against his back. His left pant leg is soaked in blood, much like it had been the first time she’d met him. Gal looks up into his cold, expressionless eyes and feels her heart jump into her throat.

“Charon. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. We agreed that it had to be done this way, or otherwise you would have been able to stop us.” Gal pleads. Charon’s expression doesn’t change. It looks alarmingly similar to the first time she’d seen him up close - cold, calculating. Sizing her up and finding her wanting.

“You’re entitled to my services in combat.” he tells her curtly. “You may command me to perform other services, such as carrying salvage or preparing food. Physical violence invalidates the contract.”

He steps away and takes his place on the wall at the other end of the room, leaving her standing there with his contract in her hand. His gaze settles on the opposite end of the room, avoiding hers. That’s the end of their conversation

Gal tucks the contract into a pocket and looks to Willow, who just gazes back at her, lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: overt references to slavery, sexual assault, violence, and suicide. 
> 
> As always, thanks to everybody that takes the time to read, give kudos, and comment. You guys rock my world.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! I am sorry the wait has been so long, it's not any reason other than me hitting a stumbling block and wanting to give you the best story possible, instead of the fastest story possible. Consider this my token of love, and forgive me?

Willow disappears out the front door to take care of the the people that respond to the gunshots. There are surprisingly few of them; Gal doesn’t know whether it’s because gunshots are a common sound coming from the Ninth Circle or because nobody really cared whether Ahzrukhal was alive or dead. Willow had made it clear that even though the Underworld residents hadn’t know about his betrayal, Ahzrukhal was still universally disliked. 

Nobody looks into it too hard. Gal assumes Willow tells somebody about the deal, but she doesn’t ask. Mostly, she just wanders around the bar, poking in the corners and opening doors, until finally she decides something needs to be done about the body and realizes she’ll have to be the one to do it. 

Gathering up a sheet that had been stuffed in a supply closet in the other room, Gal carries it over to the bar. It’s going to take some real scrubbing to get this area clean; every inch of the small, enclosed space is covered in blood and chunks. The remainder of the body is completely unrecognizable. Charon had pumped something like five rounds of buckshot into it. Gal finds that she doesn’t mind not ever seeing those weirdly slanted eyes again. 

Laying the sheet down over the body, she wraps her arms around the torso and rolls towards her until the body is cocooned in the fabric. Gal finds a bucket and a scrub brush under the bar and carries it to the bathroom in the back to fill up. She can feel Charon’s gaze heavy on her back, but ignores him doggedly. 

While the bucket is filling up, she takes a minute to poke around the rest of the space. There’s a short hallway that leads to three rooms: the bathroom, the spare room where Charon had locked them in, and one more room that’s locked up tight. She guesses that’s Ahzrukhal’s bedroom, and doesn’t bother trying to pick the lock. She doesn’t want anything that she would find in there. 

Willow has turned the last of the visitors away and is now behind the bar counter. She disappears from sight for a moment and then reemerges with the sheet-wrapped body over her shoulder. 

“I’ll get rid of this. Will you be okay here for a minute?” Willow asks. Gal nods, brushes past her with the bucket to hide the fact that she’s distinctly  _ not  _ okay. Willow’s not dumb, she knows that, but Gal still feels like she needs to make the effort. 

The bar goes silent as Gal rolls up her pant legs and drops to her knees to start cleaning. This is the  _ filthiest  _ job she’s ever had; never in her life has dunking her hand into a bucket of wash water involved feeling chunks of meat and skin brush against her hand before. She grits her teeth and scrubs harder, feeling a surge of satisfaction as the still-slick blood rubs off the bar and floor with ease. 

After a few minutes, a shadow falls over her. When she turns to look, Charon is picking up the bucket by the handle and carrying it off towards the bathroom. He comes back a minute later with a fresh bucket of water and sets it down next to her silently. 

“Thank you.” Gal says quietly, looking up at him. He ignores her and goes back to his spot on the wall. Gal sighs and goes back to scrubbing. 

She’s almost done when Willow comes back in, carrying Gal’s pack. She sets the pack down and comes over to inspect Gal’s work. 

“I think that’s good enough for now, tourist. You need to get some sleep.” she says. Gal looks at the remaining streaks of blood with a frown, but the truth is, she’s pretty tired. It’s probably somewhere around 4 AM and she hadn’t slept well last night either. 

She’d been looking forward to having all this done and over with so she could rest peacefully, but she’s no longer convinced that’s going to happen. She throws the brush down anyway and stumbles to her feet. 

“We’ll stay here for the night, I guess. Drag the mattress out into the room or something.” Gal says. She knows Willow wants to get back to her own place for a night. She has somebody waiting for her and she’s been remarkably patient in waiting to see him. 

“You two will be okay? You won’t kill each other, will you?” Willow asks, mouth twisting. Gal huffs, too tired to laugh outright. 

“I don’t have the energy to kill anyone, at least until tomorrow. But thanks, Willow. Get out of here.” 

Willow claps her on the shoulder and then turns away. She exchanges a long look with Charon before she leaves. 

The bar is dead silent. Gal flips the locks after Willow and trudges to the back to pull the mattress out. She doesn’t even hear Charon, but suddenly he’s in front of her, grabbing the mattress and sliding it from the bed frame like it weighs nothing. She realizes she’s standing in the way with her hand hanging in the air and stumbles backward. 

The bed is a queen, and it even has two pillows and a thick blanket. Gal slumps down onto one side so she can start unlacing her boots. 

“Do you mind sharing?” she asks dully as she yanks one boot off and tosses it off a little ways. “It’s big enough for both of us.” 

Charon is up against the wall in the exact same pose as he was in the other room; leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking deliberately casual. Like he couldn’t cross the room and take your head off with one shot. Gal knows better. 

“Unnecessary.” he says. “I’ll be keeping watch.” 

Gal is tired enough that she has to press her face into her thighs and take a few calming breaths to stop from yelling. She breathes until she doesn’t feel like exploding anymore and then raises her head. 

“Charon. We’re in the middle of a city that Willow has assured me is very safe, in a locked room. The only person that would have been a problem is now meat paste. So, do you mind sharing or not?” 

Charon looks at her, sitting on the mattress with one boot on and her undershirt hanging all lopsided off her shoulder. His face is impassive. 

“I will do as you command.” he says shortly. 

Gal takes her second boot off and chucks it vaguely in his direction. It goes wide and smacks the wall next to him. Childish, but gratifying. 

“Seriously? This is about the contract? Because I don’t fucking care about the contract. Look, it’s right here.” she says, pulling it from her pocket. She stands up and strides over to him, contract held in front of her. “Take it. It’s yours. Do whatever the hell you want with it.” 

She yanks Charon’s hand out and goes to drop the contract in it, but he pulls his hand away at the last second and it flutters to the floor. Gal closes her eyes and takes several long, deep breaths. Tears of frustration are beginning to prick in the corners of her eyes. 

“Would you just tell me what you’re angry about? I came here to help you, I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing.” 

Charon looks her straight in the eye as he pushes off the wall. Crossing to the other side of the mattress, he unslings his shotgun and tugs his armour off over his head. Those pieces, along with his ammo belt and boots, get stacked in a neat pile next to the mattress. Left in a black t-shirt and his customary thick trousers, Charon flips the edge of the blanket back and lays down, facing the far wall. He doesn’t say a thing. 

Gal grits her teeth as she scoops up the folded paper and marches over to the other side of the mattress. Laying down, she yanks her side of the blanket over her hips and faces away from him. 

They sleep that way all night long. 

-

Morning doesn’t dawn any better. Gal wakes up late morning to find herself alone in bed. Panicking, she fumbles her way into her boots and dashes through the doorway into the other room - only to find Charon in the middle of cooking breakfast. He takes in her disheveled appearance with no comment and slides a couple of radscorpion eggs onto a plate. 

“Good morning.” she tries, once she’s calmed down a little bit and done something vaguely respectable with her hair. No response. 

Charon takes the pan he’d been cooking on and runs it under the faucet to cool it off so he can scrub it clean. Gal notes that his shotgun is in the corner of the bar area, propped up against a wall so it’s never too far away. The flecks of blood that had been left over from her scrubbing the night before are gone. 

“We have to talk about this eventually.” she says as she seats herself at the bar. Charon pulls a bottle of water from the banged-up old fridge in the corner and slams it down in front of her. His passive-aggressiveness is just as wearying at 10 AM as it had been at 4 AM. 

“You told Willow about Ahzrukhal’s deal, and Ahzrukhal knew that. There’s no way she could have walked into Underworld and expected him to let her be.” Charon picks up an old, faded dishrag and scrubs the inside of the pan. “She also knew that Ahzrukhal was always looking for a way to make a quick buck. Including the convenient arrival of somebody like me. Somebody that Paradise Falls would want.” Charon shakes the pan off and sets it to the side of the sink. Gal pauses her monologue to take a drink of the water. 

“So it follows that the only way to make this plan work was to send me in and use me as a distraction for you, so that Willow could kill Ahzrukhal. If you’d known she was going to try, you’d have killed her. If she’d walked in herself, Ahzrukhal would have ordered you to kill her. And if you’d expected I had some intelligent plan to make this work, you would have figured the whole thing out and foiled it. So I came in, pretending to want to buy your contract, and the whole thing worked out perfectly.” 

Charon, in the middle of putting food back into the fridge, freezes. His knuckles are white on the fridge door. She waits for him to reply, but after a moment, he lets go of the fridge door and turns away from the bar area. She watches him return to his spot on the wall with marked frustration. 

Her stomach is too twisted up in knots to eat. Gal pushes the eggs away and slides off the barstool, waving Charon away when he moves to follow her out the door. 

“Just… stay here. I’ll be back.” she says. Charon obeys, but his gaze follows her out the front door. 

A shirtless ghoul with mussed, dark brown hair opens the door to Willow’s apartment. He gives Gal a once over and grins. 

“Gal, right? Come on in.” he says in greeting. Gal smiles in return and steps into the apartment tentatively. 

Quinn leads her into the kitchen, where Willow is sitting at table, smoking a cigarette. She is wearing, of all things, a pair of black pajamas with little hearts and cupids on them. She doesn’t hide her amusement at Gal’s raised eyebrows. 

“Quinn thinks he’s funny.” she says in explanation. 

Quinn, busy pouring coffee into a chipped ceramic mug at the kitchen counter, grins again. “Correction: I  _ am  _ funny. She obviously thinks so. Good taste, that one.” Quinn brings the mug over and sets it down on the table next to the other chair. A box of sweetener packets follows. Then he disappears through a doorway.

Gal sits down and wraps her hands around the mug of coffee gratefully. Willow, ever the attentive one, sees something in her eyes that tips her off and frowns. 

“Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise, I take it?” 

Gal takes a sip of the coffee and nearly burns her tongue off. The taste is bitter and strong, more like chewing through black tar than coffee. She’s not surprised that Willow drinks it that way. Gal sets the mug back down but keeps her hands wrapped around it to give her something to anchor herself to. 

“I… yeah. He won’t - he won’t talk to me.” she admits. “He just keeps telling me he’ll do whatever I say. I tried explaining why we did what we did, and he just walked away and didn’t say anything. I don’t know what to do.” 

Willow snorts and takes another drag of her cigarette. The smoke curls up towards the ceiling in lazy spirals. 

“What a baby.” she says, not without amusement. “It’s the contract he’s worried about. Think about it. You used to be on the same level. Equals. But now you have his contract, that’s not the case anymore. You’re in charge, and he’s worried about what that means.” 

Gal’s fingers go reflexively to where the square of paper is settled in her pants pocket. 

“But… he has to know that doesn’t change anything. I even - I mean, I tried to give him the contract and he refused it. I don’t know what else he wants from me.” 

Willow fixes her with a look. “You can’t give him the contract, Gal. That’s not how it works. And you can’t destroy it, either. Either you hold the contract, or somebody else does. Those are the only two options.” 

Gal frowns. “Okay then. So I hold his contract. But he should know I’m not going to use it.”

“Should he?” Willow counters. “You forget that he’s 200 years old. How many owners do you think he’s had that haven’t used his contract?” 

This conversation is nearly as frustrating as her ones with Charon has been. She swallows another mouthful of dark, gritty coffee to keep her sharp tongue in check and finally gives in to the sweetener packets on the table. Drinking that stuff is like drinking toxic waste. She’s not even sure sweetener can fix it. 

“Yeah, well, he should know I’m different. I’d never use something like that to my advantage. Damn it, we just put our lives in danger to kill Ahzrukhal, you’d figure that would make a difference!” 

Willow watches her with a steady gaze that seems faintly unapproving. Gal returns the stare stubbornly and crosses her arms over her chest. Willow’s raised eyebrow tells her that she knows Gal’s stance is more defensive than assertive. 

“Let’s just get this straight so everybody at the table understands the score.” the ghoulette says, casually slipping another cigarette between her lips and lighting it with the cherry of her last cig. 

“You, a young woman who, though surprisingly mature for your background, came directly from a Vault into the Pitt, met a man whom you at first thought was, in fact, going to defile and/or murder you. A month and a half later, due in no small part to your wise and knowing mutual friend, you’ve… let’s say ‘figured out your differences’. Am I tracking so far?” Willow doesn’t wait for Gal’s reply. “What you didn’t know is that your companion is actually 200 and some change years old and has, for almost that entire time, been tied to a contract that strips his free will completely and puts him at the mercy of other peoples’ whims. You’ve figured out, however, that most of that timespan was unpleasant. Are we still on the same page?” 

Gal is trying very hard not to shrink into her chair, even though Willow’s tone of voice is as careless as if she were talking about the weather. 

“So Haven blows the fuck up, Charon disappears because he doesn’t have an option to stay, and you get left there with a lot of very wrong assumptions about the kind of person he is - through no fault of your own, because these are interesting times we live in and you didn’t have all the facts. He comes back to Underworld and to the servitude of a vile man who deserves to burn in the lowest pits of hell, and we come up with a plan to fix that little situation. 

“Once everything is said and done, upon finding that Charon is uncomfortable and a little suspicious of the whole situation, your response is, ‘Well I don’t care about anything you’ve done in the past, even though I don’t actually  _ know _ what all you’ve done, and unlike the other employers you’ve had over the past 200 years, I’m not going to fuck you over!’ And, in a completely rational fashion, you’re confused as to why he doesn’t answer that with immediate and unbridled enthusiasm.” 

Gal has failed at not sinking down into her chair. Willow takes the cigarette from her lips and taps the ash off the end into a chipped ashtray sitting on the table. 

“Did I miss anything important?” she asks lightly, looking down at her cigarette. Gal straightens up, crosses her arms on the table, and buries her head into them with a long sigh. 

“No, I think you covered it all…” she mutters sarcastically into the table. If Willow hears, she doesn’t reply. 

After a few moments of silence, Gal feels a hand on her elbow and looks up. 

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Charon may be suspicious, but I’m not - I know you’ll do the right thing. It’ll just take some time to convince him of that too. And if I know you as well as I think you do, I know you’re committed enough to wait, aren’t you?” 

Willow is simultaneously the best and worst person on Earth. She always knows exactly what to say - probably because she can read Gal like a book. And open one, with all the important parts underlined. Which is exactly why she’s grinning at Gal now in a way that says, ‘We both know I’m talking about something more serious than a roll in the hay’. 

“As committed as you are to wearing heart-covered pajamas for your guy.” Gal mutters in a desperate attempt to save face, looking away in embarrassment. Willow lets out a snicker and sits back in her chair. Clearly, she’s in no way ashamed of the little pink and red symbols that decorate her clothes.

“I’m sure he can find you a pair if you’re feeling jealous. Quinn is a master at procurement. So when should we leave? Day after tomorrow? I don’t think we need to be quick about it, do you?” 

Gal remembers suddenly that she’s become involved in an insurgent plan to take over a giant slaver settlement, groans, and collapses onto the table again. 

\--

She returns to the Ninth Circle thoroughly chastened. Charon has his combat rifle out and across one of the tables in pieces. He keeps his eyes focused on the buffing rag in his hand as she walks in hesitantly and stops in front of the table. 

“...I’m sorry for blowing up on you last night. It was childish. I was angry because you didn’t react the way I wanted you to, but expecting you to react a certain way is a sign that I wasn’t thinking about your position in all this. And...sorry about the boot.” 

Oh God, she’d thrown a  _ boot  _ at him. 

Charon pauses, just a little stutter of his hands over the barrel of the shotgun. It’s barely enough to even catch her eye, but it’s there. She wants to push and push until he finally gives in and tells her what he’s thinking, but she doesn’t. Instead, she turns and heads for the other room. 

“I’m going to take a nap, and then I was thinking we could get an early dinner at Carol’s. Is that okay?” she calls back to Charon. She knows he won’t answer. It’s the expectation that counts, Willow had said. If Gal keeps treating things like the contract doesn’t factor in, Charon might just believe it one day. It’s the only strategy she has, so it’s what she’s going with. 

She’s in the middle of tugging her overshirt off when she notices that the little black journal is still sitting in her pile of things near the mattress. Feeling even more guilty, Gal picks it up and walks back into the other room to set it down next to Charon’s elbow. 

“I guess add violating your privacy to the list of things I have to be sorry about. I didn’t have any right to take your journal and I certainly didn’t have any right to read it, no matter what wrong ideas I had at the time. I won’t do it again.” 

Surprisingly, Gal feels a pang of loss as she leaves the little black book there. It feels like she’s abandoning the last piece of the Charon she knew. After he claims it, she’ll be left with the voiceless specter that occupies his place. She’ll have no momento of the man she lost in the process. 

That’s fucking melodrama at its finest. Gal stops that thought right in its track and goes back into the other room to flop down on the mattress. 

\--

Gal wakes up to a loud thud and falls off the mattress in a panic. Scrambling to her feet, she searches the room and finds nobody but Charon, who’s rummaging around in a pack on the floor. He must have dropped it. Deliberately. 

She groans, shuts her eyes, and stumbles to the bathroom to wash her face. 

When she comes back into the room, Willow is there, leaned up against the wall. Gal is somewhat pleased to see that Charon is intently ignoring her as well. At least they’ll be suffering his wrath together. 

“I figured we’d get a jump on getting ready. We were less prepared coming out here than I would have liked.” she says by way of explanation. Gal inclines her head and settles down on the mattress to pull her boots on. 

As it turns out, Charon is in fact prepared to talk to her. 

“This is not up for debate.” she says stubbornly, still holding the heavy chest plate up awkwardly in two hands. It’s big enough to make two out of in her size, almost. “Yours is falling apart at the seams.” 

Charon rolls his eyes at her -  _ rolls his eyes at her -  _ and shoves the chestplate out of his space, forcing Gal back a step in the process. “And  _ you  _ have limited caps. You should be spending them to outfit yourself.” 

Gal glares at him. Charon glares back. Behind them, Willow leans on the counter and watches impassively. Tulip looks like she doesn’t know whether to hide under the counter or take the chestplate out of Gal’s hands before she hurts somebody with it. 

“I’m fairly certain Tulip would be willing to barter for some of Ahzrukhal’s good stash in exchange for what we need, especially considering nobody in Underworld can even wear a chestplate that size besides you.” Willow says dryly. Charon doesn’t look at her, but he does relent and take the piece of armor from Gal finally. Thank God - that thing must weigh a hundred pounds. Is it really only made of leather? 

Feeling the tension in the air dissipate a little bit, Gal rewards Charon’s good behavior by taking the arm guards he shoves at her with no complaint. Their fingers brush; Charon jerks back like he’s been electrocuted and stalks over to the medical display instead, leaving her to fumble the guards on herself. It takes several attempts, one long breath, and finally Willow’s help to slide them into place and get them buckled. 

All in all, it costs them 532 caps and the promise of six bottles of Ahzrukhal’s finest before they’re kitted out properly. It probably would have costed more if Tulip hadn’t been so rattled by Charon’s mere presence in her shop. Clearly, Charon doesn’t visit often. The impression she gets is that when he did, it was never for pleasant purposes. He shows not a flicker of annoyment at Tulip’s treatment of him, though; in fact, he ignores her so thoroughly she might as well not be there. 

They eat a mostly quiet dinner at Carol’s after dropping the gear off in the Ninth Circle. When they get back to the bar, Charon sits down cross-legged in the pile of stuff, yanks Gal’s pack towards him, and starts pulling things out of it. 

So he’s going to pack for her, like she’s a small child. Gal frowns, nearly says something, but turns away with a sigh. Something tells her that Charon is itching for a reason to fight with her, and this is just another tactic to force that fight. She can argue the point and be miserable all night, or she can let it go and get out of doing something that, frankly, she doesn’t like doing anyway. 

So instead she runs a hair through her hair, disappears back into the main room, and starts rooting around in the storage closet for something to drink. Willow had warned her away from anything on display at the bar, citing only that ‘you don’t want to drink it, trust me’. This stuff, in the storage closet, is the ‘secret stash’ they’d promised part of to Tulip. Gal picks up bottles at random, inspecting the contents, and finally decides that beer is the safest choice. She pushes an old plastic food dish out of the way, grabs two bottles, and heads to the bar to open them. 

“I guess you were right about me getting a chance to drink.” she says in lieu of a greeting as she stops just to the right of Charon. He looks back at her and blinks at the bottle she’s offering. Gal sees that he’s halfway done repacking her gear, feels a pang of irritation, and masks it by taking a swig from her own drink. 

After a few long moments, Charon accepts the bottle. But instead of drinking it, he examines it with sharp interest, then fixes her with a sharp look. Gal shrugs and tips the bottle to her lips again. After a moment, he does the same. When she brings hers down, he’s still drinking, tipping the bottle further and further back until it’s nearly vertical. Just as Gal manages to tear her eyes away from the long line of his throat, he brings the empty bottle down and wipes his mouth off on the sleeve of his shirt. 

The last time she’d seen that gesture was...

“I’ll get you another one.” she says hurriedly, sweeping back towards the bar and trying not to think of Charon on his knees between her legs. Her cheeks are starting to feel a little warm. 

Gal takes a minute to lean against the bar and breathe a little bit, trying to will the flush out of her skin. Instead, she gets a sudden picture of Charon looming behind her, pressing his hips into her and trapping her up against the bar. Hot breath against her neck, thick arms bracketing her body…

This is going the wrong direction. Opening the fridge, she sticks her face in it for a few long moments and lets the chill cool her down. Once she feels reasonably put back together, she picks up the beers and the bottle of amber liquid she’d taken from the storage room and carries it back into the other area. Charon’s finished with the main part of her pack and is shoving ammo and medical supplies into the pouches on the sides in some sort of order that makes sense to him. He takes the new beer from her and raises his eyebrows at the liquor bottle. The side of his mouth tilts up just a little bit. 

They drink a while, Gal sputtering and coughing on her first drink of whiskey, then getting the hang of it quickly. Charon finishes the beer, eyes the whiskey, and raises a surprised eyebrow when she offers it to him. But he accepts, and they trade it back and forth until the bottle is mostly empty. As the whiskey spreads from her core into her limbs, it drags her thoughts a dozen different directions - thoughts of touching Charon, prospective arguments to fix this broken thing between them, aimless wishes to stay here endlessly and not carry the burden on her back of a crying baby and a boy with light blonde hair and big ears. 

Charon has long since finished going through their packs, now, and leans back against the finished products with one leg bent and the other kicked out across the floor. His elbow rests on the bent leg, long fingers wrapped around the neck of the whiskey bottle as they take a break from drinking. 

“Hey. Gal.” he says softly, dragging her attention away from the spot in the corner she’s been gazing at while lost in thought. She blinks and looks over at him. His face is closed off, unreadable. 

The silence drags on for a minute. Gal lets it. Finally, Charon takes another drink from the whiskey and sighs. 

“When you came here. With Willow. You put yourselves at risk. There was no way to know how it would turn out.” he looks at her for a long moment, then looks away. “If you’d been caught…”

He doesn’t finish, just keeps looking away, his shoulders tight. His grip around the neck of the whiskey bottle is harsh, nearly white-knuckled. 

It’s not an apology, or a thank you. 

“It was the only way.” Gal says tentatively. “There wasn’t another option, Charon.”

His grip on the whiskey bottle tightens, though his face stays impassive. One small tell that he’s angry. 

“There was another option.” he says shortly. “You could have stayed the hell away and left it alone. Went and looked for your father. Started a new life.” 

Gal feels her temper start to rise, both helped and hindered by the whiskey. She opens her mouth, closes it, and thinks about what she wants to say, about what the right thing to say is. Only when she’s considered it carefully does she open her mouth again. 

“You have to understand that leaving you here wasn’t really an option. Not for me, and not for Willow. You want us to be safe, I get that. We want the same for you. So there was a chance, and we took it. And yeah, maybe it could have gone bad, but if I’d left you here….well. I couldn’t live with that.” 

“And you think I could have lived with dragging you back to Paradise Falls to sell to the highest fucking bidder?” Charon counters, slamming the whiskey down on the floor with such force that Gal’s surprised the bottle doesn’t break. “But what I want doesn’t fucking matter, does it smoothskin? Now that you have my contract, you can do whatever you want, and I have to live with it.” 

_ You’re in charge, and he’s worried about what that means,  _ Willow echoes in her head. 

“What do you want, Charon?” Gal asks quietly.

The jerk of his shoulders betrays his surprise. The look he gives her is equal parts suspicious and questioning. He doesn’t know why she’s asking, but he’s afraid of finding out the answer. 

“What do you want?” she asks again. 

Charon tears his gaze away, mouth set into a thin line, and stands up. He disappears into the bathroom with a hard slam of the door, and doesn’t come back out. 

That’s okay. She didn’t really expect him to reply, she thinks as she starts tugging her boots off. The whiskey beckons, so Gal steals it back and takes another long swig. 

She’ll just have to keep asking, until she gets an answer. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: feels. Just feels.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to chapter 12 of Blackbird, where everything is a mess and we explore completely unanticipated sideplots just because. At some point I had an outline for this story but that died about 11 chapters ago.
> 
> Also sorry about the long delay. BB isn't the only thing that's a mess right now.

They leave on schedule, despite the snafus that come with all of them being blatantly uncomfortable around each other. There is a tense moment when Willow and Charon argue about whether to take the overground route or go through the metro tunnels, but it resolves peacefully - since Willow and Gal had come back through the tunnels, they’re mostly cleared out, and fighting off feral ghouls and the occasional raider is easier than fighting off Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel.

Gal finds that after spending her whole life in a Vault, and nearly a full year more of it trapped in the same three rooms for days on end, she doesn’t much enjoy being underground anymore. The walls feel too close, the air too damp and cold, the shadows too dark. They have to keep quiet, with the way sound echoes down the tunnels, so they don’t attract a pack of ghouls or tip raiders off to their position.

Charon ignores her, other than to give gruff instructions about staying close and watching her back, and Willow is irritated with Charon and in a foul mood. Thus, the trip is miserable.

Halfway down the red line tunnel heading towards Dupond, Charon stops suddenly and holds up a hand, closed into a fist. Gal and Willow stop obediently, both glancing around as Charon’s head tilts, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He pivots towards Gal, pushes her out of the way, and lifts his shotgun to his shoulder. The buckshot catches a woman with a crowbar in one hand in the chest. She lets out a strange gurgling sound, and slumps to the floor.

They pause for a moment, Gal taking in that she’d just nearly died, and Charon and Willow listening intently. Something scrapes down the side tunnel the woman had emerged from.

“We need to move.” Charon says lowly. Nobody argues.

A hundred yards down the tunnel, the first bullet whizzes by. Willow lets out a curse and darts to the side, past a broken-down subway car that offers some cover. Gal and Charon follow.

Ahead of them, the tunnel has collapsed. Gal follows Willow into a side door that looks like it leads to a maintenance area. The bullets are still flying behind them, accompanied by hoarse yells and profanities. Not giving up then, this pack of Raiders.

People on the surface are such dicks.

“Go open the tunnel. You remember where the switch is?” Willow calls to Gal. Gal searches frantically in her mind, glances around the room, and - yes. She remembers this place.

“Got it!” she calls back. Willow nods and leans back out of the doorway to return fire and slow down the Raider’s progress.

She’s lost sight of Charon. Panting from exertion, Gal darts over to the opposite wall and mashes the button that leads to the emergency tunnel set into the floor. With a mechanical groan, the doors on either side begin lifting up, revealing the stairs that lead down under the metro tunnel.

Then, with a horrific screech, they stop moving, only halfway open. Gal lets out a curses and jabs at the button again. The doors don’t move.

“ _Shit._ Willow, it’s jammed!” Willow looks back as Charon stumbles through the doorway and frowns. Charon takes up her position, allowing Willow to jog over and look at the tunnel. She mashes the button, yanks on the doors, even crouches down to fiddle with the opening mechanism, but the doors don’t budge.

“Damnit. You and I can fit through, but…” Willow looks up and back at Charon. Gal compares the width of his shoulders to the narrow opening in the doors and nods. There’s no way he’s fitting through.

“We’ll have to find something else.” she says, somewhat frantically. “We - “

“No. Go.” Charon calls out. Another blast from his shotgun causes somebody to cry out in pain.

“But -”

“ _Go,”_ Charon roars. “I’ll meet up with you at Arlington. Get out of here.”

Gal shakes her head, but Willow grabs her by the arm and yanks her towards the doors. When Gal turns her wild gaze on Willow, Willow’s eyes are serious.

“He can take care of himself. Let’s go.”

Gal takes one last look at Charon’s back and starts wedging herself through the opening into the tunnel. Willow follows, and then they’re through.

A few minutes of running later, a huge explosion rattles the steel grating below their feet. Gal stops in her tracks, goes to turn, but Willow is already there to keep herding her forward, not giving her even a second to turn and go backward. Gal gives in and keeps moving. It feels like her brain is stuck on a loop, imagining all the things that explosion could mean.

She doesn’t have much time to debate, though. Something flickers in the corner of her eye; when she turns to look, a hand slices through the air and catches on her air, tearing the fabric of her sleeve. Gal swears and stumbles backwards. Her fingers wrap around the combat knife at her hip and bring it up. The feral ghoul screams as she jams the knife through an eye socket and collapses.

Ahead of her, Willow is engaging two more. One falls over, but wraps itself around her leg, trying to topple her as well. The other is swinging for her head. Gal kicks the one on the ground in the stomach, and when it fails to dislodge the ghoul, brings her rifle around and aims for the chest. The ghoul falls still after three shots.

Willow brings her shotgun around like a baseball bat, clocks the other ghoul in the side of the head, and takes advantage of the distance to pump it full of buckshot. With that one out of commission, silence falls around them. They wait for a moment to make sure no stragglers appear, but all is quiet.

Willow glances at Gal, then winces and looks down at her leg. Her thick trousers are torn just below the knee, and there’s a very clear bite mark on her skin, leaking blood. It looks painful.

“We need to treat that.” Gal says. Willow shakes her head and whips a handkerchief out of her pocket to tie around it, not bothering to wipe up any of the blood.

“No, it’ll keep. It’s not that bad, and we need to get out of here.”

Willow has to slow down due to a limp from the bite. The metro is dark, damp, and quiet. Every little sound, from their footsteps to the drip of water along one wall, echoes eerily through the air. When Gal trips on a chunk of cement, the sound of her own bitten-off exclamation nearly scares her into a heart attack.

Willow injured, Charon missing, and her shaking out of her boots - it’s not exactly the way she hoped to start this trip. Feels like an omen, really.

But even if turning back and forgetting about the Pitt would be the best option, it doesn’t erase the faces of the Pitt slaves from her brain. She could never live with herself if she abandoned them. So on they go.

It takes literal hours to wind their way through the subway, long enough that when they finally emerge back out into the open, dusk is setting in. Gal takes a minute to appreciate the wide open space as Willow rests, leaning against the railing around the metro entrance. Willow dumps her pack on the ground and  groans when she unwraps the crusty handkerchief around her leg.

“Fucking ferals.” she says bitterly, yanking a bottle of water from her pack to soak the handkerchief. “Good thing it was me and not you. We can’t get infections like humans can.”

“You can still die from blood loss.” Gal snaps, uncharacteristically angry. Willow looks up from her wound and raises an eyebrow, then snickers.

“You’re testy when you’re pining for your lost love.” she says. Her flippant attitude does NOT make the situation better. Gal opens her mouth to say something cutting, thinks better of it, then shuts it and turns away.

“He’s going to be okay.”

Gal whirls around. “You don’t _know-”_

She stops at the look in Willow’s eyes. They’ve lost all trace of humor.

“Gal.” Willow says softly. “He’s going to be okay. Charon is tough as nails and stubborn as a mule. He can’t be brought down by a couple raiders.”

“I…” Gal tries. “I just…”

Willow waits patiently while she searches for the words. They stick in her throat, so she swallows once, twice, and then suddenly they pour out like a waterfall.

“It’s just that we left _this morning,_ Willow, and now you’re hurt and Charon is gone and he might be hurt and this is all my fault because I dragged you guys into this and I don’t even know what I thought I could do to save _literally an entire city of slaves,_ Willow, I can’t even fight a feral ghoul on my own without you needing to save me and if you hadn’t I’d have died in the arena in my first fight and you’d be in Underworld and safe.”

She stops only because her chest constricts so painfully she can’t speak anymore. One hand goes to her chest plate as she tries to take a slow breath and unwind the knot in her sternum. This feels an awful lot like the panic she’d experienced when she’d stepped out of 101 - overwhelming and uncontrollable.

Gal doesn’t even realize she’s looking down at the ground until she feels a hand on her shoulder. She looks up, right into Willow’s chestplate, and takes a step forward so she can rest her head on Willow’s collarbone. She doesn’t expect the thin, strong arms that wrap around her shoulders and pull her in close.

“You’re so full of shit, tourist.” Willow says above her head. Just like Charon, she gives off heat like a furnace. They stand in silence for a moment.

“...I told you that I had a family, right? Before I got turned into a ghoul?” Willow asks.

“Yeah.” Gal says softly. “You said they died?”

Willow hums an agreement. “Had a husband and two kids. Andy and Carla. My husband was a piece of shit, but he was a piece of shit that gave me two of the best damn kids in existence. And then… he took them away from me.”

Her grip tightens a little bit, then loosens. She takes a step back, giving Gal a little space but close enough that the heat of her can still be felt.

“I was lost without them. They were… my everything. And then when I tried to end it all, suddenly this ghoul comes swooping in to save me, drags my sorry ass twenty miles back to Underworld on his own. And it was fucking hard to start over, and there were days I didn’t want to, but eventually it got easier. I found a new place in life. Found Quinn. I owed Charon everything. And yet, I had to watch Ahzrukhal use him as a cronie and a dog for his own fucked-up pleasure.”

Her voice is starting to sound a little strange - more scratchy than normal, maybe.

“And then you come along, and you risk your goddamn life for him like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like there’s no other option but to do it. You know how many people in this world would do that?

“But it’s more than that.” Willow stops and scratches the side of her cheek. “I lost my family, tourist. We ghouls, we can’t have kids. Can’t make a family in the traditional sense, so we have to do it some other way. Everything you’ve done, for me, for Charon, you’re part of that family whether you want to be or not. And you’re worried about dragging me to Paradise Falls for a vacation? For fuck’s sake, I’d trek all the way to the West Coast with you, if that’s what you needed. I’d go to the ends of the Earth for you.”

The silence hangs thickly between them. Gal makes one aborted attempt to reply and winds up stumbling forward again into Willow’s space. She squeezes Willow’s torso so hard the ghoulette lets out a wheezing laugh, and keeps squeezing. Willow returns the embrace carefully before one hand touches Gal’s hair and smoothes it back. Gal’s dad used to do something similar when they hugged. It feels - nice, but also sad. Like there’s weight to the gesture, a story to it for both of them.

“Okay, okay, enough of that.” Willow says eventually. “Shouldn’t be doing this out in the open anyway. We’re almost to the stopping point, let’s head out before it gets too dark.”

-

They had stopped at this same house in Arlington cemetery on the way to Underworld, but it had still been light out then and far less creepy. Now, in the twilight, the shapes of the gravestones and crosses look like specters in the gloom. Gal can’t believe that they used to _bury bodies in the ground_ before the war. How creepy is that? In the Vault, they just cremate them like civil people.

“That’s why it’s so safe.” Willow says in amusement. “You humans are so damn superstitious about graveyards, you won’t even go near ‘em after dark. Come on, let’s get inside.”

Willow pushes the front door of the house open gently. They sweep through the house from top to bottom, making sure it’s empty, before dropping their packs and barricading the back entrance. Amazingly, all the windows in the house are intact, making it a good temporary hideout.

Willow starts a fire in the fireplace while Gal clears out a spot in the middle of the former living room and drags a mattress in. The smell of mac and cheese makes her stomach rumble, but she oddly enough doesn’t feel that hungry. Gal doesn’t even contemplate why until she finds herself standing at one of the windows, looking out at the graveyard and twisting a strand of hair around her finger. If Charon had gotten into trouble and they weren’t there to help…

Her eye catches movement in the gloom. Something slips behind a gravestone and then comes out the other side, a large dark shape that she can’t identify.

“Somebody’s outside,” she calls back. Willow carefully takes the mac and cheese off the fire and sets it on a crumbling brick before reaching for her rifle.

The figure ambles closer, moving slowly and keeping to the gravestones for cover. Gal accepts her own rifle from Willow and ducks down so she won’t be silhouetted in the window by the firelight. Willow gets on the other side of the door where she can take down anybody trying to break in.

The figure ambles ever closer, clearly alone. Gal doesn’t want to hope too hard, but…

“ _It’s Charon,_ ” she breathes when he finally gets close enough to identify. And he’s limping slightly on one leg and has a bandanna wrapped around his forearm that looks darker than bandanas should be. Gal sets her rifle down hurriedly, checks that her pistol is on her hip, and darts for the door. Willow lets her go first.

Charon pulls his pistol when they burst out of the doorway, but lowers it immediately afterwards. He looks worn-out, and yeah, that bandana shouldn’t be that colour. The look in his eyes as Gal and Willow stop in front of him is one of relief, which makes Gal beam at him.

“You’re getting old. Time was, you’d have beaten us here.” Willow says drily. It’s how she expresses her own relief at seeing him here and (mostly) whole. Charon snorts and lets her take his pack so he can limp up the stairs and into the house.

“Ran out of ammo and had to gut one with my knife. She was faster than usual.”

“Is that where your new decoration came from?” Gal asks, pointing to his forearm. Charon shrugs, not even looking at it, but the way he he sits down gingerly, using his other arm to lower to the floor, is telling.

“Caught a bullet. Nothing to worry about.” he says dismissively. Gal frowns at him and crouches down by his side.

“You should have stopped to treat it. Is the bullet still in there?” she asks, even as her hand is reaching for the knot on the bandana. She touches it gingerly, just trying to feel if the fabric is wet.

Charon flinches.

Gal jerks her hand back as if she’d touched a hot stove. Charon has never… _flinched_ before. She’s touched him literally dozens of times. Sure, he’d jerked away from their brief contact yesterday, but she’d chalked it up to him being angry at her still.

Her eyes go from his arm to his face, catching the untrusting, wary look in his eyes. It’s replaced almost instantaneously, but the damage is already done. She stumbles to her feet and away from Charon, her throat tight.

“Well, uh, you should… should get Willow to look at it. Stimpacks are in my bag. Where you packed them.” she says woodenly. Willow is frozen in front of the fire with a fork in her hand, looking at the two of them with a quizzical expression on her face.

Gal feels her throat tighten and flees.

She finds herself in the basement, fumbling a pack of matches out of a pocket so she can strike one and see. Somebody’s left a bunch of old lanterns scattered around a portrait of a man with dark hair at one end. Gal commandeers one that still has some oil left in it and lights the wick before sinking down against a pillar and closing her eyes.

Maybe it would be a different story if she’d held the contract right from the beginning, but going from an easy, dare she say _close_ relationship to _this…_ to flinching at being touched, and arguing, and blatant distrust…

It’s nothing she did, Gal reminds herself. Charon will come around when he feels comfortable, when he’s able to believe that Gal isn’t going to control him or use him. She has to be the gentle, understanding one, which is kind of a big burden when you don’t know what you’re doing 90% of the time. But she can do it. She can.

Something scrapes near the stairway. Gal glances over and blinks.

“...hey.” Charon says gruffly, walking over. He’s no longer limping, though his gait is a bit stiff, and his forearm is neatly bandaged in white gauze. So he’s been taken care of. Good.

She realizes she hasn’t acknowledged his greeting. It doesn’t scare him away; rather, he sits down a few feet away and stretches his leg out in front of him. Gal looks away.

 _Why would you flinch from me?_ She wants to ask. Instead, what comes out is, “Do you know who that is?”

Charon turns to look at the portrait they’re both facing, of the man with the high forehead, dark hair, and full beard. There’s not just lanterns in front of the portrait; several vases are scattered about with dried flowers stuck in them, and paper litters the floor. It looks like a memorial or something. Somebody that died here?

“That’s Abraham Lincoln.” Charon says shortly. When Gal looks at him, he elaborates.

“He used to be President of the United States, hundreds of years ago. He was called the Great Emancipator because he ended slavery in the country.”

Gal raises her eyebrows in surprise. “America practiced slavery?”

Charon lets out a huff of amusement. “Yes. For a long time, actually. The whole country went to war over it in the 1800’s and nearly split in two. But the North won, and the country was kept together and slavery abolished, thanks to Lincoln.”

 _So how did you end up the way you are?_ She thinks. He grew up when America was still around as a country, so how did Charon ended up tied to a contract that takes away his free will? “It sounds like you admire him.”

“He was a great man.” Charon says softly. “He always fought for his ideals. ‘Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.’”

Oh. Hmm.

“...is that a dig at me? Because of the contract?” Gal asks cautiously. Charon looks over at her and furrows his eyebrows.

“...no. I was referring to myself.”

“You?” she frowns. Oh. _Oh._ “Because of the stuff you’ve been made to do, you mean?”

Charon goes very carefully still, and doesn’t answer.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” she adds after a moment of silence. Rather than relaxing, Charon’s shoulders stiffen, and he looks pointedly away at a dark corner of the basement, very much away from her.

“I will do as you command.” he says woodenly.

Gal fucking hates that sentence.

She stands up, brushes the seat of her pants off, and turns to Charon, though she doesn’t move any closer to him. She can’t handle any more flinching tonight. His eyes are hard, defiant, as they meet hers. It’s like he towers over her, even he’s seated.

“It’s almost like you want me to, you know. I feel like you’re waiting for me to show some evil side I’ve been hiding this whole time, and you’re just goading me until it happens. Is that what you’re doing?”

He just looks at her, expression unchanging.

“Well, it’s not going to happen. Goad all you want, I’m not going to treat you like a - like a - “

The word doesn’t come out. She turns and leaves, the weight of his gaze heavy on her back.

Willow looks up when she comes upstairs. She takes in Gal’s stormy face and huffs in sympathy.

“It’ll take time.” she says. Gal shoots her a look and curls up near the fire, knees pulled up so she can wrap her arms around them.

Willow watches her for a moment more, then goes back to rearranging her pack. “You want first watch tonight, or should I take it?”

Gal shrugs, then reaches out for her rifle, propped up against the wall, and drags it to her.

“I’ll take it. Not that tired anyway.”

Willow shoots her a look, but doesn’t pry.  

They eat in silence. Gal finds out that Willow puts hot sauce in her mac and cheese (‘don’t have that many taste buds left, tourist. I gotta do something to make it taste good’). Charon shows up a half hour later, eats his dinner mechanically, and then sets up across the room with his shotgun. When Gal tells him she’s taking first watch, he just looks at her and stays exactly where he is.

“I’m not going to command you, if that’s what you’re waiting for. But you should get some rest.” she adds pointedly. He ignores that too.

Willow looks at both of them, mutters something under her breath, and flops down onto the mattress. Charon and Gal sit in silence, ignoring each other, until she gets back up again for her turn at watch.  

It’s not until Gal is already laying down on the mattress and half-asleep, spare clothes tucked under her head for a pillow, that she feels someone settle in on the other side.

\--

“I think we can make it to Megaton by tomorrow night. It’d be nicer to stay in a settlement than to camp out like we did on the way here, huh?”

Megaton? That sounds familiar to Gal for some reason. She frowns, in the midst of shouldering her pack, and thinks.

 _Megaton._ The word on the sign. A city she’d never gotten to her first day out of the Vault. Looks like she’s going to get to see it after all. Weird, how the universe works.

How different would her life have been, had she headed for Megaton instead of turning left at that intersection? Where would she be now?

Gal glances over at her traveling companions, bickering over something as they get ready, and smiles. The Pitt was a lot of heartache and rough times - still is, honestly - but it was worth it. Who knows if she’d ever have met Willow and Charon otherwise? Maybe she’d be farther in the search for her father, but maybe not. No, she wouldn’t give up the way things have happened.

Once they’re through the initial jaunt through the metro tunnels, the way to Megaton is relatively smooth sailing. Charon stops them just out of eyesight of Megaton’s walls and glances up at the area, eyes narrowed.

“They have a sniper on the roof.” Charon says. “You sure we’re gonna be welcome here?”

Gal squints up towards the front gate; she sees a Protectron ambling about in the distance, but nothing else. How can Charon see that far?

“Quinn comes through here all the time. We’ll be fine.” Willow says with a roll of her eyes. Gal moves to get in front - she’s no stranger to ghoul bigotry, she knows that her being in front is the best option - but Charon darts around her and takes the lead without a word.

Nothing happens as they meander up to the front gate of the settlement, though Gal does catch a flash of something shiny up above. The Protectron doesn’t bother them either, just rattles out an advertisement for some bar in town and shakes a metal limb in their direction.

The gate lifts to reveal a sturdy, if somewhat shabby, town cobbled together along the sides of what looks like a crater. Just in front of them is a pathway, reinforced with wood beams, leading down into the heart of the crater. In front of them stands a man in a cowboy hat with a neatly trimmed beards. His arms are crossed over his chest in a no-nonsense manner.

“Welcome to Megaton.” the man says in a deep, melodic voice. “I’m Sheriff Simms. I do my best to greet every new face we get in our little town. Can I ask what your business is here?”

His words are pleasant, and bland of tone, but Gal sees how his eyes dart to their weapons, cataloguing them carefully. Looks like the welcome wagon doubles as the security around here.

“We’re just passing through.” Willow answers. “We were looking for beds for the night, place to eat, then we’ll be on our way.”

“Uh-huh.” the Sheriff’s face is impassive. “If you’re looking for a place to eat, The Brass Lantern will suit you fine. I’d normally send you to the common house for lodging, but we’re full up at the moment. You can try Moriarty’s Saloon, over on the other side of the town. He’ll probably be able to rent you a room or two.”

Simm stops, eyes Charon, and continues.

“Now I want you to know that I give this speech to everybody that visits our fine town, so don’t take it personal. We don’t brook any troublemaking here. If I catch you at it, you’ll be out of here faster than you can blink. Keep on the straight and narrow, and you’ll be welcome back anytime.” with that said, the Sheriff touches a finger briefly to the brim of his hat, turns, and walks away.

As soon as the Sheriff is gone, Willow immediately rounds on Charon with an amused grin.

“You turn heads everywhere you go, you know that? Dinner first, or the saloon?”

Charon gives her a flat stare. “Very amusing. Let’s make sure we have a place to stay first.”

They hike down into the bottom of the crater, passing several houses and an outdoor bar. There’s a large puddle of water off to the side in the center of the crater, with what looks like a…

“Is that a _bomb?”_ Gal asks incredulously, looking at the rusted hunk of metal half-sunk into the puddle. A man in ragged old clothes is standing ankle-deep in the water next to the bomb, speaking to a group of people.

“Yeah, Megaton built up in this crater because of that bomb. They figured nobody would be crazy to attack if it meant they could get blown into little pieces.” Willow explains as they pass it. Charon mumbles something that sounds strangely like, ‘fucking morons’.

“You mean it’s still _active?”_ Gal says with a look of horror. Why don’t they defuse it? If it’s been there since the Great War, there’s no telling how unstable it is. It could go off anytime.

“Well, yeah.” Willow says with a snort.  “Do _you_ have the smarts to defuse it? I can guarantee no one around here does. If they did, it would have been taken care of a long time ago.”

The kicker is, Gal is pretty sure she _can._ Once you got past the encryption on the information storage in Vault 101’s computer system (which she did right after she turned thirteen, not to brag), she’d found whole gigabytes of old classified military information from before the Great War - and she’d read every word of it. If it taught her anything, it was that defusing an explosive is much easier than anybody realizes. She could have it done in ten, fifteen minutes tops.

But tinkering with a volatile nuclear bomb on their first night in town probably isn’t smart. Still, the idea sits on the edge of her mind, ignored but not forgotten. If she can help, maybe she should.

They head up the other side of the crater and around until they stop in front of a building that reads ‘Moriarty’s Saloon’. It looks a bit shabbier than the buildings around it, but then, Gal’s expectations for a bar are pretty low anyway.

The front door opens into a seating area with the bar up behind it. It’s empty of customers, but there’s a figure standing behind the counter, banging on a radio, and another man standing behind him holding a clipboard.

“Come on, work you piece of shit -” the figure standing next to the radio stops and glances up at them as the door swings shut. He’s a ghoul, with dark brown patches of hair and big milky eyes, wearing a faded grey t-shirt. He sees Gal and flinches, his eyes dropping down as if he doesn’t want to make eye contact with her. But when they light on Charon and Willow his eyebrows lift in surprise.

“Willow? Charon?” he says hesitantly, one hand still poised above the radio.

The figure with the clipboard comes forward - an older man with slicked-back grey hair and a short beard. He looks at them standing at the doorway and then at the ghoul with an irritated look on his face.

“Well, are you gonna stand there with your gob open, or are you going to serve our customers, you useless piece of shit?”

With no hesitation at all, the gray-haired man lifts his free arm and cuffs the ghoul across the back of the head, knocking him across the counter and nearly into the wall beside it. The ghoul doesn’t fight back, just lifts one arm above his head defensively and waits for the gray-haired man to back off.

“Sorry, Mr. Moriarty, I’ll get to it right away. Sorry.”

Apparently accepting of this, Moriarty whirls around and disappears into a back room. The door slams shut behind him. One hand covering the spot where he’d been cuffed, Gob looks up at Willow and Charon with shame in his eyes and straightens up.

“Sorry, I - I wasn’t expecting, well. You. What are you doing in Megaton?”

He sounds like he’s trying to change the subject, but judging from the look on Willow’s face, it’s not going to be successful. Gal follows quietly as Willow marches up to the bar. She can see bruised patches on the ghoul bartender’s arms in between the spots where his skin is ripped or missing, clearly new marks and not ones caused by ghoulification. He looks like a wreck, to be honest. No wonder, if that’s the treatment he gets on a daily basis.

“Gob,” Willow says, her voice strangely solemn. “We wondered what happened to you. Carol-”

The ghoul, Gob, starts and looks at Willow with something like panic.

“Don’t tell Carol, please! I don’t… I don’t want her to worry about me. Promise me you won’t tell her.”

Willow attempts to make a placating gesture, but the movement of her hands causes Gob to flinch again and take a step back. His arm is already halfway up to cover his face before he gets the reaction under control. Willow lowers her hands, her mouth twisted in an unhappy line.

“We won’t tell Carol, Gob. But… shit. This is fucked up. Is there anything we can do? Can we-”

Something thumps in the back. Gob glances over his shoulder and makes a nervous shushing gesture as Moriarty emerges again and shuffles around to a stack of boxes in the corner. Willow’s shoulders slump slightly as she cuts her sentence off. She seems disinclined to say anything more.

“We wanted to rent some rooms, actually.” Gal cuts in, before the whole situation turns even more sour. She tries not to be moved by the fact that Gob won’t even look her in the eye, but it’s hard. “Do you have any available?”

“Why, of course we do, lassie.” Moriarty cuts in, bellying up to the counter. “And how many will ye be needing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: canon-typical violence, good Feels, bad Feels, something close to a panic attack, and some physical abuse.
> 
> EDIT: meant to ask - I have noticed that AtD has been much more successful in terms of readership than BB is currently. Some of it may be that BB is still a work in progress, but if you guys have any other insight into why that might be, I'm interested in hearing it! Is it the plot, the writing, or maybe it's just a been-there-done-that type of thing?

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Violence, Slavery, references to attempted sexual assault, foul language. 
> 
> Please leave me a comment if you have any feedback!


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